Random Brain Droppings

 

Late Saturday and early Sunday are the best times for me to write. That is until we have a bit of an emergency here at the house like we did last Sunday morning. Long story short, neither my wife nor I had heard from our daughter up in Clemson since last Thursday. Being out of contact with our daughter for a couple of days is no big deal, she's busy studying or doing other college stuff. But by Sunday morning with no answer from our texts and our calls being sent straight to voice mail we were getting worried, if not scared.

No worries, my wife and I found out while we were on the way up to Clemson that our daughter had lost her cell phone that Thursday. We learned this after the on-call person at the dorm went to her room and knocked on the door two different times. After knocking at the door for the second time our daughter finally woke up to explain the situation with her phone and that her friends only talk to their parents like “once every week or so.”

Since we were already speeding up to Clemson, my wife, the custodian and master of the family cell phones, did what needed to be done to get her a replacement. So the really great story I started writing Saturday afternoon died a slow death of forgotten ideas and plot points. So instead here's some random brain droppings to make up for it.

Random Dropping One

Several days ago I caught a McDonalds commercial on the radio as I was driving home. This commercial was geared towards African-Americans the way McDonalds often does with hip hop music in the background and voice actors with noticeable accents so you understand they don't come from some upper middle class white neighborhood.

The narrator of the commercial went on to say in a happy and jovial voice something about how when you're driving from your second job to your side hustle you need something quick and good to eat. That you need to be in and out quick so you can have a few minutes to relax.

First of all having a second job means you have a first job that takes up a good part of your day. I know LOTS of people that have second jobs because their first job doesn't pay enough to make ends meet. These honest and hardworking folks don't work that second job because it's fun or they need something to take up all their free time. For one of the two-job working people I know a vacation to her is having an entire Saturday and Sunday at home being left alone.

Rich and well off folks really need to develop some sort of empathy because at some point the overworked and underpaid masses are going to lose their patience and come after them.

Random Dropping Two

Directly related to first dropping, I've heard numerous employers bitching on the business channels that they can't get anyone to apply for the jobs they offer. That many of these jobless folks would rather just sit at home and draw unemployment.

Finally a few people are replying to these asshole captains of industry that they need to pay enough where a person would make more working for them than sitting home on unemployment.

Random Dropping Three

Jim Caviezel is a superbly talented actor who has been in numerous hit movies and successful television series. He is also a conservative Christian who has been vocal about how his beliefs don't mix with the majority of people in Hollywood.

I can respect his views and actually understand to a certain point. I'm an extreme liberal bordering on Sanders/AOC progressive living in a heavily red state. I have to daily keep my mouth shut and do my best to live among people who I consider borderline fascists. It sucks hind tit but, as far as I am concerned, there is no point to whine about it.

What I'm saying is that I never cared what political or religious views Caviezel held. He's a great actor and I would readily watch anything he might appear. That is until now, to put it bluntly the dude has lost all his marbles.

Caviezel recently appeared at a conspiracy convention and told folks that he not only believes crazy shit about vaccines and the Covid Pandemic, but goes even further out into crazy land. He believes babies are being kidnapped and tortured to death so the “Elites” can harvest some sort of compound from their innocent blood.

Final Brain Dropping

For a long time I've wanted to write something meaningful about George Floyd and all the other victims of police violence but I find myself unable. There is no outrage I could write that better, more articulate people haven't already put to a page. There is no other way to say it but that African-Americans are being hunted in this country, both by racist civilians and especially by cops who can somehow peacefully apprehend gun-totting white folks but shoot black people on sight.

Back in 2015 a piece of South Carolina shit by the name of Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston and killed nine people in cold blood. A virulent racist, he wanted to start a race war here in the United States. I'll be damned but there seems to be a lot of people like him doing their to make such a war happen.

Side note, after being arrested shit bird Dylann Roof whined about being hungry and the cops taking him back to South Carolina pulled into a Burger King and bought him a Whopper. Motherfucker kills nine people and gets feed. George Floyd just passed a fake twenty-dollar bill and got a knee on his neck for over nine minutes.

Shocking the Monkey

 

 Since the beginning of the Trump era far too many people have been struggling to reconcile the hateful nature of MAGA supporters with their common beliefs about the general goodness of human nature. This extends even to myself because during the initial phases of the 2016 presidential campaign I would have never believed such crude and corrupted individual as the Orange Buffoon would be nominated by the Republican Party, much less actually become president.

Understand, way back before the 2008 election both my stomach turned and my eyes rolled whenever someone spoke dreamily about the glorious nature of a “post-racial America” since Barrack Obama was heavily favored to win that election.

To assume centuries of racial discrimination and oppression would suddenly evaporate with the election of the United States' first black president definitely leaned heavily into the realm of fantasy. However, it did seem unthinkable to me that anyone would seriously consider a clearly immoral and outright racist individual as the Orange Buffoon occupying the highest office in the United States.

In short, I fully expected that Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz would have been the 2016 nominee. The former a simple but dependable rehash of his father and brother. As for the latter, I thought he was the absolute outer edge of the rancid Republican value of profit over people and the party's hateful and skewed societal views.

Recently though I was reminded of the experiments performed by Professor Stanley Milgram at Yale University in the 1960s. These experiments involved how people look at authority and obedience.

In fact Milgram's research can, in my opinion, best be summed up in one of his quotes from 1974. “The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not such much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he acts.”

His experiment involved the recruitment of individuals using newspaper ads which each person was paid $4.50. These recruits were then told they would take the role as a “teacher” who would be asking a series of questions to a “student” in another room they could not see.

On a table in front of the teacher would be an intimidating device that Milgram said was a shock generator with the student in the next room attached to the business end of the machine. The teacher was told to give the student a shock every time they gave the wrong answer to the asked question . These shocks started at 30 volts and increased in 15-increments for every wrong answer going all the way up to 450 volts.

Increasing the stress on the teacher, the switches on the shock device were labeled with terms such as “slight shock,” “moderate shock” and “danger: severe shock.” The final two switches were labeled with nothing but “XXX” suggesting something darker.

Understand, while these teachers believed they would be applying an electric punishment for wrong answers, the students in the next room were perfectly safe and just play acting at the direction of Milgram.

As the experiment progressed the student's reaction to the electrically shocks got increasingly more desperate. The teacher would hear the student in the next room pleading to be released or even that he had a heart condition. Once they reached the 300 volt level the student would bang on the wall demanding to be released. Beyond that point the student went silent and refused to answer any more question. The teacher was instructed to treat the silence as an incorrect response and deliver further shocks.

At that point the teacher would ask the controller of the experiment if they should continue. The controller would respond with a series of commands to prod the teacher to continue:

1. “Please continue.”

2. “The experiment requires that you continue.”

3. “It is absolutely essential that you continue.”

4. “You have no other choice, you must go on.”

You'd think a normal person playing the role of teacher would at least stop shocking the student once the supposed test subject started pleading that the voltage was too painful. But in reality 65 percent of the teacher participates continued to apply the maximum shocks to their unresponsive and unseen students. It was noticed during the experiments, that many of the teachers became extremely distraught and angry at the controllers but continued to follow orders all the way to the end.

The immediate question has to be why did the teacher-participates continued applying painful shocks to an unseen student? The general answer is that the presence of an authority figure (controller) increased compliance. The fact that a trusted academic institution, Yale University sponsored the experiment lead many of the participants to believe it was safe, even after the student became unresponsive.

Milgram summed up his experiment with this statement: “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work becomes patently clear, and they are asked to carry out action incompatible fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

So you might be wondering how all this ties into my point. Having the Orange Buffoon as president clearly gave license to the worst aspects of human nature. The natural authority that comes with holding that office allowed the Buffoon to give voice to all those barely hidden hates and fears, giving them an environment they could easily thrive. Sort of like the way mold loves to grow in wet and humid places.

For me, the worst aspect of having to live through such a repugnant individual's reign is that the damage the Orange Buffoon's done will not whither away with him out of office. Because once a mold like him takes hold in a house the repair work to get rid of it will be extensive and costly. Truthfully, taking the mold analogy further, Lincoln warned us of a house divided being unable to stand. The Orange Buffoon's mold might have already metastasized to the point the house is now contaminated beyond the ability of anyone to save it.

Nothing proves this point more than all the Republican congressmen who signed on in support of the Texas lawsuit attempting to overturn the election results in critical swing states. This was nothing less than an attempted coup to reinstall a delusional thug who harbored dreams of authoritarian power. Even after the Texas lawsuit was struck down, numerous fools in the Republican party started speaking about their states succeeding from the Union.

Even if the Orange Buffoon is in jail or dies between now and 2024, there are plenty of others who will take up his debauched mantle. 

 

Source:

Milgram's Experiment and the Perils of Obedience, VeryWellMind.com, September 16, 2019

 https://www.verywellmind.com/the-milgram-obedience-experiment-2795243

Narcissists of the World Unite!

All names have been significantly changed!!!

As coworkers went Andy Martin was the absolute worst. Before his retirement he carried a well earned reputation of being an egotistical, but yet insecure asshole with the vast majority of people who had any encounter with him while on the job. Unfortunately, Andy was on the three man team I was part of that took care of hospital sterilizers. That meant I had to work closely with him on a daily basis. And as you might be able to guess, I was subject to many of his lies, mind games, and outright scams.

The most audacious scam was during the time the third man on our team was a patient in the hospital. We're both at work but Andy calls me up on the phone and says I own him fifty-dollars for my share of the flowers he purchased for our coworker getting surgery. I knew nothing about Andy getting flowers and had never agreed to share the cost on anything. My refusal to cough up any money left Andy stuttering on the phone so badly that he hung up on me. That was a pretty typical example of his underhanded nature.

Anyone working with Andy quickly realized he had no conscious and an extremely exaggerated opinion of himself. And yes, he was obsessed with status and not losing face in front of others. Hence why he called on the phone instead of finding me and asking for the fifty-dollar flower money in person. While this particular scam fell short, Andy was the type that held grudges.

While Andy was a very short, overweight, middle-aged man he regularly bragged about his Ford Mustang, his Harley motorcycle, and his truck which was one of the overly large types. Along with that, he never stopped talking about the land he owned, his extra house in North Carolina, and his numerous guns. I can't help but mention the regular and excruciatingly detailed stories of his home improvement projects he would tell to near captive audiences, complete with a seemingly infinite number of boring pictures showing his progress.

My weirdest incident with Andy occurred over a pair of pliers of mine that in the space of a few seconds went missing. We were both sitting on the floor fairly close to each other working on a particular type of sterilizer. My tools for this repair were situated on the floor to my left while Andy's was on his right. During this repair, I had to crawl under the sterilizer with my pliers to loosen a valve that was giving us trouble. Once it was loosen enough to be removed by hand, I dropped my pliers on the floor between Andy and myself and pulled the valve free of the sterilizer. In the space of a few seconds as I worked the worn part out of the sterilizer assembly, my pliers grew legs and walked away.

I immediately confronted Andy about the location of the pliers but he played stupid saying he hadn't touched or seen what happened to them. While the missing/stolen tool was a minor inconvenience since my boss would order me another, Andy had an evil grin on his face worthy of some Bond villain whose plan to take over the world was on the verge of succeeding. This little piece of bullshit was Andy getting even for me not falling for his fifty-dollar flower scam or some other little imagined insult to his dignity. The one overriding fact in all this I have to make clear was that Andy knew I understood he had stolen my pliers.

Going to the boss and accusing Andy of petty thievery would have resulted in him going all drama queen making everyone's life a pain in the ass for days. Yeah, stupid stuff like this with Andy happened on a regular basis. So much that a few years later management forced Andy into retirement. Most people who work at the hospital for as long as Andy have nice retirement parties thrown in their honor. Not him, in fact absolutely no tears were shed as he packed up his belongings and clocked out on his final day.

This true story of a narcissistic asshole should sound sickeningly familiar on a national scale.

For Trump's entire time occupying the Oval Office, he has been dogged with evidence that in some form or the other he, his family, and his advisers conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election in his favor. Absolutely nothing in his behavior nor actions has done anything to dissuade rational people of that idea. In fact, everything Trump does has some clear benefit to Russia, whether its undermining the NATO alliance, the European Union, our position in the Middle East, or just our national security. As Speaker Pelosi recently told him during a heated exchange, “All roads lead to Putin for you.”

So Friday when it was announced Trump was considering an invitation to attend the May Day Parade in Moscow, the memories of Andy and the stolen pliers came flashing back to me. It's almost like Trump is daring us to accuse him again of being a Russian agent. Just when I thought Trump couldn't be any more brazen with his Russian sympathies than the time during the Helsinki summit a few years ago when he did everything to appease Putin short of kissing his ass on live television.

After three years occupying the White House, you would think the depth of Trump's narcissistic behavior couldn't get any worse. That the Republican Party and his cabinet and staff would force him to adhere to some sort of limits on his extreme behavior. I knew from day one after the November 2016 election that he would be a nightmare, but I never considered how insidious his corruption and narcissism would be to the nation. One little, insecure man with delusions of grandeur can make the workplace a pain. You put a similar individual into a position of power and he threaten the foundation of everything good in an incredibly short time.

Bad Political Moon Rising

The conversation I found myself having with an acquaintance/neighbor last week quickly turned into one of those odd, surreal rarities that others would think you were lying through your teeth if you told them about it. However, the terrible events that took place the next day made it relevant in a way neither my visitor nor I could imagine.

Lately my wife has been beseeching me to be more open and approachable to the natives, so I felt obligated to try when this gentleman said hello and crossed over into my yard as I was raking the leaves littering the ground around me. I admit, this unnamed person was doing his best to be friendly and while I happily wrap myself in the banner of a snobbish prick who considers himself several levels above the rank and file suburban serfs I met him halfway and shook his hand. Unfortunately, while things stayed friendly and personable the conversation quickly went off the proverbial cliff.

After a few generalized niceties the guy went straight into a rehearsed spiel about how my family and I should start attending his church, a small fundamentalist place a few miles down the road from the subdivision we both live. Contrary to my wife's assumptions upon hearing this I didn't freak out and throw the guy out of my yard for wasting my time. Nor did I go into a half-assed diatribe about how it would be a cold day in hell before I ever set foot into his right-wing, Taliban-like evangelical church whose members probably gather together each Sunday to discuss when Obama will come for their precious guns. I simply told him no thanks and tried to return to my chores.

Somehow this person didn't get the hint and then proceeded to start talking about current events before telling me about on a sermon he heard on the radio a few days before. According to him, the sermon dealt with Canada's very liberal immigration policy and how it was a threat to the national security of the United States. This is where it started getting seriously weird with him spouting off points about the length of the U.S./Canada border and how it's essentially undefended. His point being that any number of nefarious individuals or even groups could leave behind their socialized health care and come south to blow things and people up.

Quite frankly I found myself dumbfounded that I was being drawn into a conversation that I didn't want to participate. Nor did I want to justify his verbal offal with a response since I considered this guy full of paranoia topped off with gobs of stupidity like icing on a cake. After totally berating Canada for several minutes I expected this person to start on Mexico but for some reason he seemed to have forgotten about our unlucky neighbor to the south. Against my better judgment though I did try to explain to this guy that securing the U.S./Canada border would require an unimaginably massive amount of personnel, which in turn would force taxes to be raised to pay for the people and material to support such a mission.

True to form this guy responded that we could pay for it by cutting wasteful spending and other programs, which I took to mean the much belittled welfare and food stamps. Somewhere in the nether regions of my brain I registered his comment to mean that while he, and probably many others, lived in abject fear of some nebulous Canadian immigrant boogeyman that was still not a reason to raise taxes.

Maybe it's because I'm married to a tax attorney with years of experience with government financing but what nearly all tea baggers utterly fail to understand is that there isn't any giga-pile of money being wasted that could be put to constructive use. Neither is there really any room to cut discretionary spending, the United States already has the highest child poverty rate in the Western world making our country an embarrassment to the rest of the industrialized nations. Further more, as much as right-wingers want to deny it, our infrastructure like roads, bridges, and electrical power grid is old and being held together with duct tape and good intentions. So the idea of somehow securing the Canadian border to prevent individuals from sneaking over wins the glorious booby prize of being so completely stupid as to defy human imagination.

Call me foolish, but for reasons I can't really define I didn't try to have a coherent conversation with this guy as to why he and his radio preacher were wholesale morons. But said something to the effect that if terrorists wanted to sneak into the country all they had to do was wrap themselves in bails of marijuana or cocaine. Because the federal government has spent untold hundreds of billions to try and stop the importation of drugs since Ronny Raygun and failed miserably. I didn't think my point was that abstract, but the look of total incomprehension on my unwanted visitor's face made him appear to be contemplating quantum mechanics instead of considering alternate routes to sneak into the country. Whatever the case, Mr. Acquaintance/neighbor, chose that moment to say he had to leave.

Of course, this conversation took place last Friday, one day before the horrific terrorists attacks in Paris. Making matters much worse, one of the ISIS terrorists involved in the attacks was carrying a Syrian passport and appears to have been masquerading as one of the thousands of refuges fleeing the ongoing civil war in that country. Not to take away the humanity of both Mr. Acquaintance/neighbor and his radio preacher, I figure it's safe to guess that both spent much of that weekend filled with righteous indignation that their favorite nightmare came partially true.

That Saturday night the already scheduled Democratic debate had the three candidates running around in circles trying not to appear soft on terrorism. I didn't see the entire debate, only segments posted to You Tube but I came away with a creeping fear far different from the possibility of followup attacks either in France or here in the United States.

Way back during the 2012 presidential campaign I compared the Republicans running for the nomination back then to the aliens in the cantina scene from the original Star Wars movie. Those movie aliens were truly bizarre creatures but quite comparable to the collection of preening rich boys suffering from delusions of grandeur and amoral, failed politicians desperate to regain power. Unfortunately, the 2016 Republicans candidates running for the nomination make the ones from 2012 look halfway normal. Things are so bad Ted Cruz alone appears more like a fictional character from a political thriller written with H.P. Lovecraft-inspired overtones than an actual person running for president. Throw in Donald Trump and Ben Carson, the current front runners no less, and you have enough material for a Constitutional nightmare. The one unifying theme all these lackluster and brain dead puppets share is that their belief the United States must be ready to bomb the living shit out of anyone who even looks cross-eyed at us.

The point in all this rambling is that the American electorate even in the best of times is a bunch of barely sentient animals that usually responds more readily to fear than hope. For all the glib assumptions that either Hillary or Bernie would easily defeat any of the Republican morons in a general election that idea is based on the current political dynamic in this country. After the 9/11 attacks the United States essentially lost its feeble mind and willingly embraced things like indefinite detention, warrant-less wiretaps, and even torture. Oh, the media and politicians wrapped those concepts in clean, justifiable terms to make them tolerable to the hazy American center who at the time were more worried about bad guys flying airplanes into public buildings. So please excuse my cynical belief that a couple of Paris-style attacks here in the United States would push the mushy American middle into electing a president who would make George W. Bush seem enlighten and thoughtful.

I once thought the 2016 presidential campaign would on the Republican side be a laugh riot. The idea that any of them, even the so-called moderates like Jeb Bush and that governor from Ohio, could be elected seemed ridiculous. Now, when your consider the conversation I had with Mr. Acquaintance/neighbor all I can say is that I'll be sweating bullets until Election Day next November.

Special Place in Hell

Someone once said that capitalism without humanity is evil. That is an adage that takes special meaning, at least for me, whenever children are involved. I'm all for some person who comes up with a new idea, or through hard work builds a business, making a buck or two off of it. However, to purposely endanger the lives of children so the bottom line can be fatten up just a little more defies all manner of common sense. While I write this last statement realizing I'm far from perfect I hope God reserves a special place in Hell for those "business people" that follow such practices and curiously enough a few business journalists I've heard who make light of these events claiming China is too good a friend to get very upset over a few poisoned children.

A government probe announced on Tuesday showed a fifth of 109 dairy producers checked made batches of products adulterated with melamine, which is banned from use in foods.

Earlier this week, officials said 1,253 children were ill and two had died after the country's biggest baby milk powder maker, the Sanlu Group, last week revealed its products contained melamine, which can be used to bamboozle milk quality checks.

Melamine is rich in nitrogen, used to measure protein, and so can be used to disguise diluted milk. It can cause kidney stones and other organ problems. Four suppliers have so far been arrested for selling melamine-laced milk to Sanlu.

Coastal Dead Zones and the hairless primate

Map showing coastal dead zones. Map also showing range of hairless primate responsible for the dead zones.





Just when you thought all you had to worry about was terrorism, global warming, a new Cold War, economic recession, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, falling home prices, a failing health care system, and John McCain in the Oval Office butchering a Beach Boys song with his finger on the nuclear button as Cindy looks on in a Stepford wife daze smiling. I have one more item to fill you with cheer, at least if you have had your happy pills prescription filled and been doing your modern American duty and been taking them like good sheep.

In my last post I lamented how uncontrolled and careless development has wrecked much of the environment and the way of life of the southeast coastal areas. I also touched on how in the bizarre, at least to me, desire to imitate old English country estates huge amounts of fertilizer is used to keep those lawns nice and green. But the question never really seems to be asked by those using all that stuff is where does all those chemicals go once it has seeped down into the ground? The answer is the coastal waters that act as the base of the food chain and a nursery to much aquatic life we eat. That's right folks, those juicy shrimp you ate Red Lobster a few days ago just didn't materialize in their freezer but had to be born and develop in coastal waters. But with everything the United States already faces why should we be worried about just a bunch of little fishes and crustaceans? Well writing strictly from a bias point of view if the biospheres of the coastal waters collapse the ripple effect will move up the food chain to the hairless primate whose environment is an easy chair in front of the huge LCD screen mounted on the wall watching television. Maybe once something effects that primate's lifestyle beyond material goods like the SUV, the McMansion, or easy credit he or she might just pay some attention. But by that time it will be too late.

"Dead Zones" Multiplying Fast, Coastal Water Study Says
Anne Minardfor National Geographic News
August 14, 2008

"Dead zones" are on the rise, says a new study that identified stark growth in the number of coastal areas where the water has too little oxygen to sustain marine life. There are now more than 400 known dead zones in coastal waters worldwide, compared to 305 in the 1990s, according to study author Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Those numbers are up from 162 in the 1980s, 87 in the 1970s, and 49 in the 1960s, Diaz said. In the 1910s, four dead zones had been identified.Diaz and co-author Rutger Rosenberg, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said in a press release that dead zones are now "the key stressor on marine ecosystems" and "rank with overfishing, habitat loss, and harmful algal blooms as global environmental problems."Their study appears in the August 15 issue of the journal Science.Dead ZonesDead zones occur when excess nutrients—usually nitrogen and phosphorus—from agriculture or the burning of fossil fuels seep into the water system and fertilize blooms of algae along the coast.As the microscopic plants die and sink to the ocean floor, they feed bacteria, which consume dissolved oxygen from surrounding waters. This limits oxygen availability for bottom-dwelling organisms and the fish that eat them.(Related story: "Ocean Dead Zones Growing; May Be Linked to Warming" [May 1, 2008])Many marine ecosystems experience low oxygen levels between spring and fall, Diaz said. But the lack of oxygen becomes persistent if nutrient levels stay high.Earth's largest dead zone, in the Baltic Sea, experiences oxygen deprivation year-round, the press release said. The second largest dead zone surrounds the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite decades of efforts to clean up U.S. rivers and lakes, high nitrogen levels are currently combining with strong water flow to make that dead zone larger than it has ever been.Government-supported scientists not involved with Diaz's review are forecasting an expansion of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone to a record 8,800 square miles (23,000 square kilometers), an area larger than New Jersey. (Related story: "Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone" Is Size of New Jersey" [May 25, 2005])Nancy Rabalais, executive director and professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, said the paper "shows that there is a lot of lost production of [seafloor] animals—those living in the sediments—that could be food" for fishery stocks. Diaz and Rosenberg note in the press release that dead zones tend to be overlooked until they start to affect organisms that people eat. Mixed EffortsSome local and regional governments have stepped in with conservation and cleanup efforts to combat dead zones.Maryland, for instance, gives $18 million a year in grants to farmers who plant additional crops after their harvest to absorb leftover fertilizer before it ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. Rabalais, who was not involved in the Diaz review, said she has seen little sustained effort to combat nutrient runoff in the Mississippi River. "In the recent years of increased acreage of corn and biofuels, the amount of fertilizer used and the amount of nitrogen per volume of Mississippi River water has increased dramatically," Rabalais said. "What we have is this pulse of nutrients that are coming down our rivers every year," Diaz added. "Somehow we have to find a way to stop that. "The loss of fertilizer is an economic drain on the industry. It is not something the farming community wants to happen, and controlling it is the key to controlling the spread of dead zones."

Okay, the weekend was great but Monday sucked.

Hello everyone, funny thing happened while I was playing with Miss Wiggles where she takes gymnastics. See there was this rope mounted to the ceiling for climbing and me being a excellent dad I had to show my daughter how I did it when I was a rough, tough, and much younger soldier. Yours truly scampered quite well up the twenty some-odd foot rope but when I came down on the cushions that protect the youngings from hurting themselves I looked down and saw my my right foot at a ninety-degree angle compared to my left. Within thirty minutes my ankle had swelled to the size of a nice watermelon and right now looks all purple and reddish. Now the pain is managed and bearable but with the house in chaos and the computer in a spot that does not lend well to extended writing I'm going to be away for a few more days. The little blue pills I'm taking for the pain make my head a little more than the usual weird so that is another reason why I will be away. I started typing this a good while ago and had to have Spoilboy take over. Everyone hang tight and I'll be back sometime Saturday.

Cosmic ponderings on intelligent life, or lack there of.

Oh, yeah Homo Sapiens the most advanced life form on the planet. Somewhere the dinosaurs are laughing their asses off.




There is been much in the way of discussion among the various science types about whether we are alone in the universe or that out there among the stars is an untold amount of other intelligent species pursuing their hopes and dreams. Those science types here on earth with absolutely no life at all have at times run the numbers on several factors that make up Fermi’s Paradox and figured out that some little green man, women, or whatever should have at some point dropped by Earth for a visit. Their absence has lead many of the egghead boys and girls to ponder the option that we are indeed alone in the cosmos. Now I’m fine to a certain extent with no Klingons, Romulans, or heaven forbid the freaking Borg showing up in orbit and blasting us with their ray guns and then sucking our brains out. But upon watching my fellow humans for years and just about coming to the conclusion that given how I must be crazy since most everyone else I’m around to me acts insane and I can’t be the only sane person around I have come to a different answer.

I have been bouncing the idea around in my head for awhile that contrary to the usual presumption the human race is not an intelligent species. Yes, human beings have and still do write great works of literature, paint glorious works of art, write majestic works of music, build cities, and explore both the deep seas and outer space, none of this is under debate. But given how we are causing global warming due to uncontrolled burning of oil so one person can ride in comfort in their SUV’s, driving a huge number of plants and animals extinct for stupid reasons like using powdered rhino horn to get your woody going, killing fellow humans over religious and political reasons, and electing strange unintelligent mutant throwbacks to national office quite frankly I think the question needs to be debated. On a recent Discovery channel show one of my favorite authors, David Brin, pondered what might take our place on the planet if we, humans, should disappear. Not quoting him here but he said something to the effect that yes, another intelligent species (at least how we see intelligence) might evolve but another possibility is that a species that he described as “clever” might arise with the ability to use simple tools, organize group efforts, and learn basic principles of the world around them but not be sentient, or at least that is the basic jest of what he was trying to say. Many times since that show as the daily boneheaded antics of humanity played out on the nightly news I have wondered if humans are just “clever” animals with our civilization relatively speaking to some advanced alien zipping around the galaxy no more advance than how we look upon the chimpanzees as the go about their daily lives.

In my weird way I can see some intrepid alien Captain Kirk, cruising the galaxy looking for new life forms, civilizations, and smoking hot alien babes to bag and then have them stumbling upon or little blue marble. The most likely response they would have, apart from blasting us into oblivion, would be how some city people act when they have strayed too far off the interstate and into the more rural area of the south where family trees are rather straight up and down affairs with few branches. They might slow down for a minute as they pass through seeing all the bizarre creatures. Then they would turn around and rush back the way they came to tell others that no, there is no intelligent life in this part of the interstellar boonies.

Signs of strange and bizarre times

I really hoped this was just a bad joke but it may be signs of something far worse.

Saying that we are living in dangerous and difficult times is an understatement that defies description. Things are so strange that I have heard some on both the liberal and conservative sides of American politics wish longingly for the bi-polar world of the Cold War. At least then for the United States the enemy we faced was simple and clear with far fewer other wolves at the door than we seem to be facing now. Thirty years ago the worst thing we lived under was the threat of Mutual Assured Destruction from a nuclear war with the Soviet Union but few if any worried about global warming, mass extinctions, pandemics, nuclear or biological terrorism, or any number or other near doomsday scenarios. Adding to this list of ever present worries we face now are concerns about the educational system and if our kids are keeping up, whether our jobs will be outsourced overseas, will we be able to retire, or will we fall victim to disease and illness and become burdens to our children struggling to survive themselves. Given all stresses its little wonder why some need medication to face life. But I was surprised to find that some are openly wondering if it was best that not only if they didn’t exist but that it would be better if the human race went extinct to solve issues involving population. While I had heard of similar concepts in science fiction, namely Nature’s End, I had always relegated such an idea to the more distant improbable concepts explored in science fiction.

I have yet to receive the book but the premise explored by the author appears to deal only with over population. But I can’t help but wonder if the other stress factors involved with daily life are bleeding over. (Yeah, I may be jumping the gun but this has freaked me out) Not including those affected by medical depression the prescription of mood altering drugs is rampant with articles and reports saying that many people need something just to get through a normal day. Many times these are people that live in huge fabulous houses, drive new and expensive cars, and have tons of neat toys and gadgets. But yet in the struggle to supply all those possessions I personally know some that claim an emptiness in their lives that more possessions just make bigger. In the past most took comfort in religion to bring meaning in their life but for numerous reasons many find that not an option now.

So is the option now non-existence in the form of organized suicide and a possible movement toward extinction? And is this an example of the decay of Western Civilization when you call into question the very idea of living and speculate about the benefits of human extinction? I guess I will find out after I read the book.

The Harm Of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar

Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. Thus, if they ever do reflect on whether they should bring others into existence—-rather than having children without even thinking about whether they should—-they presume that they do them no harm. Better Never to Have Been challenges these assumptions. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm... The author shows that there are a number of well-documented features of human psychology that explain why people systematically overestimate the quality of their lives and why they are thus resistant to the suggestion that they were seriously harmed by being brought into existence. The author then argues for the 'anti-natal' view—-that it is always wrong to have children—-and he shows that combining the anti-natal view with common pro-choice views about foetal moral status yield a 'pro-death' view about abortion (at the earlier stages of gestation). Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct. Although counter-intuitive for many, that implication is defended, not least by showing that it solves many conundrums of moral theory about population.

One of the comments from the Amazon site about the book:

Emilana Uoj says:

I don't understand why people are hating this book without even reading it- so you're glass half full people- people that never question their lives or existence- you are actually his target audience- he needs to make you see that what you believe is b.s. and that you should really try to look at life more objectively to determine how "worth it" it is...

I think people really need to look at both sides of the story- everyone says that we're all so blessed to be alive... WHY?! the only reason why people say that is because they had no choice in the matter of coming into existence and the only way to gain some control is by pretending that you wanted to be here... so stop lying to yourselves.... you had no choice in being here... so yeah... now that we're here we make the best of it... but dont lie to yourself (and others) and say that life isn't hard and harmful...

if you hate the book so much just by the title- why dont you pick up and actually read it and see what his arguments are- and read it with an open mind!!

life sucks- there's no meaning- there's no purpose and you didn't even have a choice for whether to be in it or not... what's not horrible about that??? and if you're religious... i read a quote lately that's great- it goes something like... religious wars are like little kids fighting about whose imaginary friend is the strongest...

thank you very much

Okay, I’m stupid enough to bite and since I’m really having nothing else to post and I’ve ran out of beer, what to hell. Life is a huge pain in the ass with dealing with money issues and having to work for a living. But I guess I’m just not sophisticated enough not to enjoy watching a sunset, walking on a beach, playing with my kids, being around family and friends, or a whole bunch of other things. What amazes me though is the idea that life is so hard now. Yes, some live with medical, economic, and societal disadvantages that make life very difficult but a good many that walk around a complaining about how unhappy they are either have never seen how some people live in third world countries. Because someone has to put up with jerk of a boss or has sold themselves into credit card serfdom is nothing compared to having to walk miles for food or water or having to avoid armed squads looking to kill you because of your skin color, religion, or ethnicity.

I listed several factors above but I’m hard pressed to worry about what I can’t change and I have enough intelligence to recognize that I cannot buy happiness. And yes I had no choice in my existence but sorry, I find my existence a blessing and enjoy my life while trying to help others. I do not challenge your right to ask such questions and I will read the book but such whining suggests that your mental health is in question or that you

actually need to go out and get a real life.