Craven

A few days ago--April 9th--as the Olympic torch was being relayed hustled through the obfuscated streets of San Francisco (the route had been changed at the last moment to confound protesters) a torch bearer with the audacity to display a small Tibetan flag had the torch seized by a contingent of Chinese paramilitary that have been 'escorting' the torch everywhere it goes.

Majora Carter moments after

Some may argue that San Francisco is not really a part of the US but freedom of expression is traditionally practiced there (unless it is pro-Christian or anti-gay). But with a heavy SFPD presence why would the Chinese boys in light blue be allowed to waylay Ms. Carter's harmless act of support for Tibet? Are we that deep in China's pocket?

A Google search for [Olympic torch assault] revealed this from Istanbul.

April 3rd

The accompanying headline to the above:

Istanbul, Turkey 4/3/2008 Police detained at least six Muslims on Thursday at an anti-China protest during the Olympic torch ceremony near one of Turkey's most famous tourist destinations.

(scratching head) Muslims?!? In 98% Muslim Turkey?!? That's tantamount to describing any particular six people in Vatican City as Catholics.

April 7th

From the UK Daily Mail

The global power shift from the West to the East is no longer just a matter of debate confined to learned journals and newspaper columns - it is a reality that is beginning to have a huge impact on our daily lives.

What would those Victorian masters of old have made of the fact that Chinese security men were on the streets of London this week, ordering our own police about and fighting running battles with British protesters while bewildered athletes carried the Olympic torch on its relay through the capital?

It was a brazen display of how confident China has become of its new place in the world, just as the British Government's failure to take a firm stand on Chinese abuses of human rights shows how craven we have become.

I would dearly love to bitchslap the Limey writer that penned keyboarded the above sentence... but the experience related above in the City by the Bay illustrates clearly that it is so.

It's a first

Come on! This is as funny as it gets.

from the London Daily Mail

Two primary schools have withdrawn storybooks about same-sex relationships after objections from Muslim parents.

Up to 90 gathered at the schools to complain about the books which are aimed at pupils as young as five.

One story, titled King & King, is a fairytale about a prince who turns down three princesses before marrying one of their brothers. Another named And Tango Makes Three features two male penguins who fall in love at a New York zoo.

I guess what is somewhat bothering me is that no other alleged followers of The Book showed up and that this is written of as solely religious.

I believe that some persons may be born homosexual. I also believe that some are born hetero/homo that may be influenced by powerful pheromones at a critical and decisive time in their early pre and pubescent lives. These factors are beyond control of decision making parts of our minds--both are strictly biological.

Homosexuality is contraindicative of the continuance of society. That doesn't mean that it can't be countenanced--just that it must never be normative and must never be allowed as normative.

That the UK is allowing promoting five year olds to read books without understanding the social repercussions of homosexuality is shameful and counterproductive to society in general.

I need to say that the shameful series Girls Gone wild is less shameful that Society Gone wild.

Venture

It's been said that every great movement eventually becomes a business. Then over time a racket.


Richard Branson, left, Elon Musk, the co-founder of Paypal, center, and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister

From the International Herald Tribune

What he wanted to know was whether his high-powered visitors, among them Larry Page of Google, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, thought global warming threatened the planet.

Branson does - and so did most of his guests. So on this recent weekend on his private hideaway in the crystalline waters between the islands of Tortola and Anegada, they tried to figure out what to do about it and perhaps get richer in the process.

Some of them, like Page, carbon-consciously jet-pooled in from Silicon Valley, where the financiers who bankrolled the Web boom of the 1990s have started chasing the new "New New Thing": green power. In an era of $100-plus oil, venture capitalists like Vinod Khosla, another invitee, are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into young companies that cook up biofuels and harness the power of the sun.

I have nothing against these or most other rich people. Most earned their rewards honestly through endeavor and risk taking. I also have nothing against conservation and new means to meet our energy needs.

Over and over and--over again--science is revealing that the hysteria over Climate Change is unwarranted. There is compelling historical evidence that it is natural and not one, not one piece of empirical evidence that mankind has an effect on climate. The so-called evidence of warming is produced from computer models--none of which is immune to GIGO--and ground based thermometers.

Billions have already been spent on ethanol production and vehicles and now the scientific community is questioning whether it is any cleaner in the long run while we also see food prices spike.

So let the inventors and the innovators and the investors put their creativity and capital to work.

But in the meantime we have the petroleum we need to be self sufficient here in America and Canada and Mexico.

The men at the above meeting brainstormed ways to move forward. There will be paper trails to satisfy the SEC and all the other agencies. They have the money to do so and I wish them well.

But from where is the money coming that is funding all opposition to our drilling for our own oil and refining it?

seven

I'm no expert on the subject of Chinese history but I recently read that China experienced something referred to as a 'soft' dark age for half a millenium that only ended about 40 years ago. A variety of reasons are given but the one that sticks out is (drum roll) bad decisions.

The very idea of societal collapse is about as hard for us to imagine as the idea of a religious war. Yet world history reveals that both have occurred and recurred. Plague, war, environmental destruction can all be factors beyond a single society's control but bad decisions--that all too human failing--may be the ubiquitous one.

It sounded like a good idea at the time...

The Social Security Act of 1935 and its subsequent offspring Medicare et al (1965) will be our bad decision within one more generation. It is unsustainable, and what's worse... everybody knows it.

from wiki

Societal collapse occurs in one of two ways:

1. Its adaptive capacity is reduced by a sharp increase in population or social complexity, leading to a destabilization of social institutions and eventual massive shifts in population and social dynamics.

Never mind the second way for now--it doesn't apply.

A sharp increase in population. Indeed, we're fairly concentrated on the increase by immigration but we, along with Europe and Japan, are facing something that is new to the world--a population in which the mean age continues to rise.

There is a concept in physics called Energy Returned on Energy Invested or ERoEI. Build a nuclear power plant or open a new oil field and the energy invested pales compared to the energy returned. But when the ratio approaches 1:1 then the game is not worth the candle, so to speak.

I think this is a useful concept in thinking about workers in society. There will come a point at which the workforce will fall to 50% with the remaining 50% as retirees, children, and the unemployable. The solution so far has been to seek masses of immigrants which simply poses other sets of problems.

This begs the question--what will the American worker do? The worker who with a decent wage was able to stride forward in life who now finds that his or her good-paying job cannot meet his or her expenses because of government confiscation for redistribution?

Perhaps it's now time to revisit some American history. Let us not forget that for all the talk of liberty and justice, of natural rights endowed by our Creator, our beloved revolution was sparked by one issue that united us all--keeping the majority of what we earn.