Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

The apparent paradox as to why bad things happen to good people puzzled me, coming from a Christian background. Often in the media, one finds this question being posed by traumatized people who have lost a loved one. At an early age, I learned that God runs the Universe, and God is omnipotent and omniscient, and God is Good. Why would such a God allow bad things, such as death and suffering, happen to good people? This does not seem reasonable.

I believe the only way to resolve the paradox is to depart from Christian thinking and to accept that our lives do not have quite as much significance as we think they do. Perhaps they are not altogether meaningless, but we are expendable, and I think that is self-evident, with an overwhelming abundance of evidence. All of us die. Our species could fairly easily be wiped from the planet altogether, perhaps through self-destruction, as seems likely at this point, due to our propensity for tribal warfare and our advanced military technology. Would that we had remained with bows and arrows! Think for a moment about the many species that preceded us. Where are they now? There has been a lot of bloodshed and a lot of death to get to us through the long process of evolution. There were a lot of false starts.

If there is such a thing as God, then he has demonstrated utter indifference to our fate throughout the course of history, and why should he not? Our lifespan is brief, and we are fragile and succumb to a myriad of genetic abnormalities, microbial diseases and accidents that have no relation to our moral conduct. From our design, we are meant to be temporary, disposable, expendable, and readily replaced. Those who do not accept that are thinking in childish and selfish terms and can be excused for doing so, because of course, we all would prefer to live forever without pain and suffering. I don't think that God condones death, pain and suffering. I think instead that he is removed from the equation. Those things are not considered important or are a part of the cycle of life.

The idea of living creatures as temporary avatars of the One Unifying Force appeals to me, although I don't know how it works exactly, but computer games offer a glimpse into the system. To think that all matter, everything we see and everything we are, derived ultimately from stars is a deep thought. What naturally follows from that is the observation that everything has a sameness about it, being constructed of the same material and coming from the same origin. The atoms of my body could have, but for random chance, composed one of the many layers of the Sun or the Moon. In our lives, we express a consciousness that may exist only as a potential, dormant and unexpressed, in inanimate things such as the Sun or the Moon. In time, we too lose our consciousness, and our atoms become like the Sun or the Moon, incapable of giving voice to ideas or thoughts. Our atoms are only capable of consciousness for a very brief amount of time, and for the rest of eternity remain silent as the grave, unless they become absorbed into another living being--much recycling takes place on this Earth. Why should mankind be so different, so divorced from nature, from the cosmos? I think instead we express cosmic forces that already exist in the universe, and that darkness and light, good and evil, destruction and rebirth, are expressions of those cosmic forces.

To speak of things in metaphysical terms is to simplify and concentrate the accumulated hard-won knowledge of science, in all its complexity, but we should always stay grounded in science, lest we stray into error. Scientists such as Feynman scorn philosophers in general but perhaps reserve a special scorn for those that stray far away from physical science. I would not say, for instance, that there is a God that will intervene in human affairs, because I have not witnessed that, and it seems to me if there were such a God, he would have intervened long ago to stop various atrocities and right all of the things that are wrong in the world, from North Korea to Iran to Russia and even here at home in the United States. Surely a just God would not have suffered countless injustices to go unpunished upon this Earth, were he at all concerned with the doings of humankind. There are many paradoxes in the mainstream religions that remain unresolved and point to their falseness. Also, I would not say that we have eternal life in Paradise awaiting us, because I have not seen this Paradise, and all the evidence of science points toward the cessation of consciousness at death; therefore I believe, for now, that my consciousness and individuality will be annihilated at the moment of my demise. Although that is a point of intense regret for many people, I am philosophic, because it cannot be helped, and because everyone else in the same boat, and after all, wasn't I lucky even to exist in the first place and to survive for as long as I did? Isn't it ingratitude and selfishness to demand more from the Universe? Even a moment of consciousness is more than many collections of atoms ever experience. All the atoms of the Sun--when have they possessed a single thought? Yet the atoms of the Sun outnumber the atoms of the Earth, as we have been told by our scientists. Others will inherit the earth, and let us hope that they improve the condition of the ones that follow them, as we have tried in our own ways to improve conditions in our times.

Turkey is a Middle Eastern Country

The idea that Turkey can belong to the European Union is a joke. They even arrested a 16 year-old boy for insulting their President. Turkey looks a lot more like Iran than any European country. Maybe after about a hundred of years of self-improvement and reform, they may be able to join the EU on a probationary basis. They need to learn how to run a republic before pretending they can join the other European nations.

I Want to See "The Interview"

The only movie I'm interested in seeing is "The Interview," because I'll be damned if some two-bit North Korean dictator is going to tell me what I can and cannot watch. You go ahead try and bomb the theaters or whatever, and maybe North Korea will cease being radioactive after a couple hundred years.

Of course Putin ("Putrid") would hate the movie. Dictators gotta stick together, ya know. What that old rotten egg Putrid needs to understand is that Russia would be a lot better off if he had drunk some of that KGB poison, the stuff he uses on his enemies, a long time ago. The reason Russia's economy is going down the tubes is because of Putrid. There is really no other reason. Who invaded Ukraine? Putrid the stinker. Who neglected Russia's economy? Putrid. No other individual. You can't blame the West for everything. The only thing Putrid did during his time in office was eliminate Russia's civil liberties and rape her Republic and install a morally bankrupt dictatorship. He hates Russia with a passion and is fanatically dedicated to the destruction of Russia, and to that end, he seems to be doing a pretty good job. Hey, Putrid! Just because you annoy the other nations around you with your stench doesn't mean Russia is strong. Strong under the arm, maybe, but not strong.

The Scum of Mother Jones

One thing that disenchants me about Mother Jones is that their readers and writers have no manners. Everything to them is bullshik this, motherfuch that. They love profanity and ugliness and vulgarity. They hate refinement and civilization. They want to burn the whole world down. Mother Jones has no soul. It is completely grounded in tribalism. It is really no different from Fox News. Everything to them is us versus them. They hate white people, they hate police, and they hate the United States with a passion bordering on fanaticism. Meanwhile, they love tyranny, anarchy, and chaos. They don't understand science and only interpret issues based upon their own selfish needs. I can't really trust Mother Jones. It really should be renamed. Instead of Mother Jones, how about Mother Fuch? I resolve in 2015 to stop reading that site. I'm removing it from my favorites. I need to read something a little higher-level on the intellectual scale.

I deleted all references to Mother Jones that I made in cyberspace. At least I will not be contributing anything to that entity, and that makes me feel better. I don't like contributing to evil in any way. I'm  glad that I never actually contributed any money, even in the form of a subscription, to MJ over the years, at least that I can remember. I can be forgiven giving them links on a temporary basis, due to my incomplete understanding of their moral alignment. Now that I know they are evil, I have removed all links to their site.

Enthusiasm tends to be a problem. Perhaps objectivity is better in the pursuit of truth. However, we are after all animals, and we are subject to passions. To be passionate about something is not necessarily bad. It is, instead, human. I am lucky in that my passion for what is good exceeds my passion for tribal loyalty to any particular brand.

What Mother Jones really needs is a good trojan horse to permit an inside look at the emails and internal documents revealing where their funding is coming from. Unexplained is how that outfit is able to produce so much reporting without much of a subscriber base. I've never known a single soul that reads MJ, let alone subscribes to it, and I seldom find it in grocery stores. I guess screaming "Bullshi-" every other sentence is a turn-off to more people than just me.

Perhaps the editors of Mother Jones suffer from Asperger Syndrome. They lack essential social skills. They think they're fine, but other people, their potential audience, perceive their lack of civility, their rough manners, their ugliness. And that is why Mother Jones speaks to the few rather than the many, and why this will always be the case, until the management of MJ is replaced by competent management.

Effortless

I used to become attached, to love in the old-fashioned romantic sense, which is an immature manner of relating to beautiful and superior beings. It is instinctive, for obvious reasons, but it is primitive, and one must progress past that infantile stage.

The perfect being does not attach in such a way to others. He may admire, respect and even love others. To become completely and utterly attached and thus bound to the material world, to the chain of karma and the cycle of life, that is a vice. He should not become attached. So it is that I do love the beings I encounter, even as I love myself. But they may come or they may go, and I may come or I may go, in life or in death, and all is well, just because. All is well, always and forever, because the cosmos is ordered thus, and it is not even necessary to understand why.

When I was very young, people broke my heart by forgetting, ignoring or otherwise excluding me from their society. How many tears I shed, how much my heart trembled, and life seemed unbearable! Now I smile like the crocodile, because that is no longer possible. Lucky me. I have known and been loved and desired and admired by beautiful and bright superior beings, captains at the very forefront of the Host. So I am thinking, "As good as you are, you are not even in the same league as so-and-so." I have already lived, and now is merely the bonus round, where I might pick up this or that without moving my overall score that much. Humans I understand fundamentally to the core. I have seen it all and known it all before, and nothing is mysterious or strange, and everything is very familiar to me.

Of my sensitivity, it was a disguised gift, and I thought it a curse in my younger days until I learned the shaman's way. Sensitivity is a rare, powerful and useful tool. I have learned to filter my sensitivity and not be overly affected by the things that I perceive. Of course, that is necessary for survival.

Even people's bad manners and petty cruelties and negligence offer insight into the workings of their minds and assist one in the reconstruction of the all-encompassing reality. With such insight, I can construct a more accurate reality based not only upon my own limited perceptions but upon the perceptions of others, so that I perceive more and am not left in ignorance. With such resources, drawing upon what others reveal to me, I can accept what is so and discard illusion.

ISIS and Sex Slavery

There is an article on the revolting sex slavery practiced by ISIS. Because ISIS does not abide by the Geneva Convention, basic morality, nor any of the rules of war, it is morally acceptable to use any means against them, including chemical, biological, and psychological. If an agent can be induced to spread disease among the ISIS fighters, that would be ideal. The savages are lower than animals, worse than any member of the animal kingdom, and make the Nazis look better by comparison.

It's a very good thing they are Muslim, though, and representing Islam to the world. Let the world know Islam through ISIS and only through ISIS. That is the only positive out of their existence. I regard ISIS as the official ambassadors of the Muslim community to the rest of the human population. This is what you get when you follow that path. Death, torture, violence, war.

The Western countries have a responsibility to reduce asylum and immigration from Muslim countries at least ten-fold. The West does not need more Muslims. The Muslims should stay where they are and try to educate their brethren and lift them up from savagery. Learning about morality is a start. That is something they need to learn in their own country, at their own expense and not ours. Their coming over to the West to earn money in low-wage jobs or practice terrorism is not something the West should support. I think our politicians need to be a little bit wiser in terms of immigration policy and exclude those that adhere to primitive and violent cults.

There are enough problems in the world without the distraction of ignorant savages blowing things up and shooting people for no reason but their primitive cult. They remind one of cockroaches, ugly and purposeless. They hate education, hate freedom, and want to turn back the clock to the Middle Ages. At the same time, they breed like rabbits and do not understand the concept of birth control. It's a perfect recipe for the destruction of naive Western societies.

America's Unlikely Defenders

The most devout guardians of our homeland are North Korea and Iran, or had better be, regardless of their bellicose rhetoric to the contrary, because were we ever attacked by nuclear arms, then there is no question but that N. Korea and Iran would cease to be inhabited by human beings within twenty-four hours, and that would be right, and the American public would approve of that response. The idiots heading those incompetent dictatorships may delude themselves all they want, but the instinct for self-preservation may yet stay their hand, as anyone can guess what lies in store for them in the final analysis.

When dealing with such regimes, they are guilty until proven innocent beyond any shadow of a doubt. And even if they are not guilty of a particular crime, they are already proven guilty of other crimes and deserve what they get.

Cheap Oil

Cheap oil is the best thing to happen in the world for years. Let Russia and Iran suffer, as they so richly deserve. Iran spends all its money pursuing a nuclear war with Israel, while Russia spends all its resources invading neighboring Ukraine. Neither country is responsible in terms of the environment, civil liberties, or neighboring countries. Both countries oppress their own citizens most of all.

Mass unemployment and social unrest are perfect medicines for those countries, which labor under totalitarian regimes. The people in those countries need to acquire firearms and use them on State security forces. That is their duty as human beings and that is what they are on this Earth to do. I hope that oil stays at $35 a barrel for the next ten to twenty years. Then Russia and Iran will be forced to confront the reality that they are completely incompetent to do anything. The only reason their people did not starve in the first place is that they happened to score big on the geography lottery and find a hoard of oil under their feet. Lucky for them, but they are stupid and ignorant and lazy, and without high-priced oil, they're sunk. Time to drink the coffee and face the music.

I'm a Socialite

I'm a late bloomer as far as socializing goes. I was withdrawn as a kid, more confident as a young man, but now that I'm in old fart territory, I feel comfortable chatting with anyone. I'm simply not afraid of anyone or anything, and I'm not intent on selling anyone anything, either. There is the sense of, "Been there, done that, survived it all."

Death

Death places a halo on the head of the dead, because they are blameless. To blame them is as pointless as blaming a rock, tree, or river--they are inanimate. Only the living may be blamed for the problems of today. With the dead, in most cases one thinks, they did the best they could with the resources at hand. Indeed in some cases, it is fantastic they could do what they did do, while laboring under such tremendous handicaps. It is important to forgive and forget whenever possible. To brood upon the past makes us vulnerable to the powers of darkness that are so eager to gain a foothold into our world. Some of those on the global scene that brood over the past are those Republicans who want to do no trade with Cuba, even though our dispute with them is fifty years old, and Cuba is no worse than China, objectively--in fact, China is far more a threat to us. North Korea and Iran brood over the past. Putin broods over the past. Those who idealize the Southern Confederacy, they too brood over the past too much. Live in the present.

Although forgiveness isn't necessary, by any means, I do forgive my dead father all his real or perceived faults without exception. He was more than good enough. He was wonderful, judged in the context of his burden, and that is the only way we should judge other people. It is easy for strong people with sound minds to be proud and powerful when put to the test. They do not have to make as much effort. They do not suffer as much. To be mentally ill is a tremendous burden. Just imagining it is frightening. Living it is worse. I read the list of side effects for his medicine the other day and that helped me understand a great deal.

The reason I have never taken acid or any powerful drug is that I fear the loss of control, the giving of the self over to the Random, to evil spirits, psychosis, or self-hypnosis, or whatever takes its place. This is also the reason that other people abstain from powerful drugs--and also heavy drinking or heavy pot smoking, because even the milder substances, when taken in great excess, can impair our sense of self-control. We do fear the loss of control and are wise to do so.

My father had many good qualities, and most importantly, he intended to do good. Conscience was  powerful in him as it is in me, and this, I think, is the seed of goodness, for without conscience, what guide have we? There is no invisible guardian standing ready to cast black magic upon us, should we do ill to others, although I think there should be. We refrain from evil not so much out of fear of the law or of societal disapproval or for our own insignificant lives, but rather out of fear of committing Sin, which alienates a human being from communion with the consciousness that pervades all things, the Force, as Obi Wan-Kenobi and Yoda described it in "Return of the Jedi." Perhaps that is indeed what God is, rather than a single being. And, perhaps we are not single beings either, and individuality is an illusion, but we are all avatars of the One, and all of us are interconnected, whether we know it or not. Those that are evil delude themselves in thinking they are separate. They are wholly sold on the illusion of individuality. After the brief span of a man's days, the illusion is dispelled. What remains of an evil-doer's savage individuality is a rotting corpse, food for worms. Those that are good perceive, maybe dimly, but they perceive an invisible network connecting all living beings. They exist not only for the benefit of self, but for the benefit of others as well, because the self is transitory, and others will inherit the earth.

Dr. Oz Looks Like The Grinch

Dr. Oz peddles miracle weight-loss products on his show. I think the guy looks like The Grinch, that villain created by Dr. Seuss. Some doctors go into medicine because they want to help people, but a lot go into medicine because they want to make a lot of money. Raspberry ketones, indeed, Dr. Oz.

Sadness

I hate when good people squabble for silly reasons. Mainly due to miscommunication, I think. Tribalism, racism, homophobia, sexism, politics. It makes me sad when they cannot get along. I haven't the power to make them. If I had the power, I would make them. I would bring their heads together like in the Three Stooges. Clonk!

Would that Jesus had summoned the Host and ruled the world as Emperor eternal, wise and just. I always thought the crucifixion made no sense at all. I cannot accept such a sacrifice. Better by far to remain in the world. To ascend into Heaven and sit on the right hand of the Father is laziness. We needed you, and you left us. How is that right? So I do not believe in any of that.

My Stick Figures

The trouble with my writing is the same as with an amateur artist. I write in stick figures. My characters aren't fleshed out, not really, not on the page at least, though they are in my mind. When I read my story, all kinds of images float through my mind, but they have not all been translated into words like they should be. Instead, the characters look like stick figures, just rough outlines. There is too little description, too little detail, and far too much dialogue. Indeed, my stories read like plays. But who really wants to read a play? Not I. I would rather read a story. I need to convert my plays into proper stories, I think. Perhaps it is simply a matter of filling up the bones with flesh.

Sick Actor

Why does Hollywood hire a violent, psychotic and cruel actor, like this piece of work, when there are plenty of good actors to go around? Talent is plentiful. I can attend any play put on at the local college and observe actors who are just as good as the ones I see on television. I don't think there's any room in the cast of any show for someone who would even pretend to skin, kill and eat someone's pet, whether rabbit, cat, or dog. I think such crimes should be prosecuted as felonies, at the very least.

Conservative Liberal Democrats

In Japan, the Liberal Democrats are the conservative party. I'm not sure in what way they are considered conservative, but it probably has to do with the age-old debate between social welfare programs and whatever the opposite is--giving money to the rich, I guess.

Japan also has a Buddhist Komei political party. I don't know what a Buddhist would have to do with politics, but I guess they would favor more temples and less sexual openness. Most religions seem down on sex for some odd reason having to do with our primate origins.

The Liberal Democrats want to expand nuclear power in Japan. I approve in general of nuclear power, but think that Japan should not use it, because that island is so vulnerable to volcanoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. I think the U.S. should certainly use nuclear power in order to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases. Yes, there is danger in nuclear power, but our options are limited at this point in time. I believe the U.S. has adequate supplies of uranium in order to fuel nuclear reactors. Most of our major cities, especially those located safely away from the ocean, in the interior, should derive 100% of their power from nuclear reactors.

CEO's

The Sony hack came about because some high-powered CEO opened an email and executed code written by malicious hackers. Why am I not surprised? Now Sony loses millions of dollars, all because of a CEO earning millions of dollars a year for inhabiting a suit and talking BS all day long. CEO's are not worth their coffee mugs, and yet in the U.S., they earn hundreds of times more than the hardest-working employees at their companies. The easiest way to bring a company down is by targeting its weakest link--the CEO, who knows nothing about anything other than the buttons to speed-dial their massage therapist.

Where Republicans and Democrats Differ

The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans are for torture. Democrats believe torture is morally wrong. That single issue defines the political parties better than any other. Nothing more really needs to be said about politics in the United States. If you vote Republican, you believe it is OK to torture a prisoner. Plain and simple, open and shut, end of story.

I believe some issues are pretty simple. Either you possess one moral alignment or another. I think it is evil to torture prisoners for whatever reason. It is distasteful and unworthy and low. It makes us like the stinking Nazis or the filthy Communists. I think that people who would do that, would do a lot of other things as well, and therefore cannot be trusted. If moral considerations of grave consequence can be so easily set aside, if one can so readily inflict immense suffering upon a defenseless human, then one is aligned with the darkness, and evil will result. The servant of darkness may not understand and may think they know better, but that is nevertheless the way.

The issue of torture presents a particularly thorny problem for Christians and may make them quite cross, but perhaps some of those who profess so loudly their religiosity in public, praying and speaking of God at every occasion, perhaps they reason their way around the problem, thinking that after all, they're always right, and God is always on their side, just because they believe such-and-such, and therefore, and what not. They have not reasoned their way out of a paper bag. They are still in the bag.

Cheney defends torture on the basis of its supposed effectiveness. I'm amused that he never really comes right out and says he supports torture. All of these right-wingers are using mealy-mouthed terms like "enhanced interrogation techniques" which sounds like so much BS. Just say torture. Cut the crap, tell it like it is. We will respect you more for 'fessing up. You tortured helpless prisoners, okay? Just say so. Either these torturers feel guilty, which seems doubtful, or they're playing word games for political reasons, which seems likely.

I don't care whether torture is effective or not. It's just ugly. It's going a step too far, and one always wonders, what if the tables were turned? Who among us would want to be tortured? To be killed is one thing. Death does not seem so bad by comparison. I can accept death better than being kept alive only to experience indignities, agony and misery. I have to wonder how Cheney would feel being subjected to the very same torture he assigned to his helpless prisoners.

There is value in maintaining the moral high ground. Cheney sacrificed the moral high ground readily for almost no return. It is as though he sees no value in morality and does not understand why other people do. Perhaps Cheney thinks Democrats are stupid for caring about torture. If good is stupid, then stupid is good. I rather think that Cheney is stupid for failing to comprehend the greater good.

Where I Get My Traffic

You may wonder where Glorious Igor gets all his traffic. Like for instance if you have no life and actually give a hoot about some over-the-hill blogger.

The answer is like I said before, 99% of my traffic is spam and malware sites from Russia that target and want to infect me and probably other bloggers. I don't know whether the KGB is still in business these days or whether it was renamed to some other acronym, but Putin's a bad actor and certainly spreads evil tentacles through cyberspace trying to infect, annoy or otherwise harm perceived and actual enemies.

A dumbass novice blogger or technically unsophisticated blogger would out of vanity click on one of those sites and expose their computer to a malware attack and also reveal their IP address, so that even if their computer is not compromised, their identity is, at least in part. Once someone has an IP address, they have a pretty effective way to determine who is who, unless the visitor is using a proxy or public wireless, etc., but even then, there are trails and there are trails...

I never click on such sites. If I don't recognize the site, to hell with it. I am somewhat interested in the search terms that lead people to my blog. That is perhaps the only valid and useful stat. I know that people read me because of dungeon crawl, solydx, and to a lesser extent other linux thingamajiggies. I know that people could not give a damn about my opinions on philosophy, my stories and my opinions on politics, but I also know that I don't give a damn whether they give a damn, and I write what I please anyway. Sometimes people do read my stuff by accident no doubt and once in a blue moon, I think when someone is under the influence of a substance, they will leave a comment letting me know their reaction. That can be fun, although a lot of comments have spam links or are left solely for the purpose of promoting another site.

Into the Calm

The best advice an old friend ever gave me was about self-control. He said if one is aware of a fault, that is, one that cannot be entirely eliminated, then besides reducing its frequency, for instance by abstaining from alcohol, there is yet another trick. When the inner eye observes the faulty logic executing, much in the same way an anti-virus would apprehend malware, one seizes the runaway process and stops it. "There I go again, so unnecessary and pointless," was the phrase he used. I find this an effective technique to defuse anger, for instance, which is such a negative emotion of limited utility in our modern world, although it may have had a purpose long ago. There are individuals that try their darnedest to provoke us into anger, because they feed upon that much as the dung-beetle feeds upon its chosen meal. I think avoidance of these types of people and ignoring their provocations may be the best strategy. When they do not get any notice of their remarks, then they do not get any satisfaction. The entire reason they provoke is to receive drama that is lacking in their lives, because no one with any sense wants to be around them for any length of time.

Fatal Error in Zot Defense

Before you ask, I already reported this bug or one like it many moons ago. I have no right to complain about a free game really, so this isn't a complaint per se, just a wailing to the gods. Perhaps Kikubaaqudgha, in my case. Oh Kiku ! Why hast thou forsaken me? And devs, please tell us, why must there be a fatal error that crashes the game and stops the show? I was having fun. . . I do so love Zot Defense! Well, I don't really know any way around this error, and it always without fail pops up in Zot Defense, so there we are.

The monsters should be smart enough to figure out that they can fight their way through apparent obstacles such as plants and fireballs, and that those obstacles do not block their path. So if no other path is found, then let the algorithm choose a less desirable path that requires removing a removable obstacle.

Ten Cokes a Day

Yeah. Reminds me of Super-Size Me. One thing I gained from that article is that I need to knock off the fruit juice.

Don't Have to Be Perfect

Accepting that one doesn't have to be perfect is key to mental health and avoidance of depression. When I notice a fault, I try to find the humor in it rather than getting down about it. In the first place, being aware of a fault is a positive and should not be interpreted as a negative. At least awareness opens up the possibility of addressing or compensating for known faults. But people who just constantly pick and find faults in other people are unpleasant, and one doesn't wish to be around them.

I don't think a complicated top-heavy animal (big brain, frail body) can be perfect. There are going to be limitations, particularly in the functioning of the brain and personality. One isn't going to meet the standards of everyone one encounters. But all of that is OK, for the simple reason everyone is in the same boat. Since everyone's headed to the boneyard, even if there are some geniuses or strongmen nearby or out there in the wide world, as they age they will lose, one by one, in stages or suddenly, those gifts they once had, so in a way, we're all equal, except for very, very brief spurts of activity. What are 1 - 100 years in the cosmic sense of time, which is measured in billions of years if it is measured at all? Some say the Universe begins and ends, and others say it regenerates itself, and there are other theories, but the consensus is that the Universe is around for a length of time unimaginable to our brains... billions of years. So man is a flash in the pan.

I mean, all humans are doing pretty well compared to the ancestors, bacteria or amoebas or whatever, pond scum floating around and soaking up cosmic rays until random mutations led to us.

Ban on Books?

I usually think of the UK as enlightened in most matters not pertaining to marijuana, so I was surprised to learn that the meatheads running the prisons over there banned books. Finally, a judge has ruled that the ban is unlawful. The wardens say they are worried about books being used for drug smuggling. Drugs, schmugs. A couple joints getting through is no reason to deny books to everybody in the joint. It's not like a joint is going to blow up the joint. In fact, a little marijuana once in a while should be distributed to prisoners as a reward for good behavior. Learning to love reading really is just the thing to rehabilitate a criminal into a normal human being. Besides, honestly who the hell else is going to buy any books in this video-besotted age? At least keep the prison market open for the starving authors.

Writing

I do think I've written some half-way decent short stories in my day. My ambition in life has always been to compile a pretty large volume of stories and essays and publish somewhere where I can feel fairly confident that the work will persist after my demise. Money or power as an end unto itself has never interested me; I just want enough money to be reasonably comfortable in lower-middle class or rather upper lower-class squalor, and as for power, I want the power that comes with freedom from debt and freedom in the sense of liberty.

I would hate for all my work to be destroyed and no one ever see it again. I think that if I bother to write about something, then perhaps it is important after all, perhaps I am even moved by something like the zeitgeist, because I have noticed that things I am very passionate about, such as marijuana and gay rights, have gained ascendency even in my own lifetime. And although I am nominally atheist I do not rule out the hypothesis that maybe an intelligence greater than my own moves me. We humans are such simple beings, you know, that it should not be terribly difficult to play us like violins, I would think, if one were a reasonably respectable alien form of life, dwelling not necessarily out of reach. Who really knows what unusual forms an alien can take, and whether they really need a form at all? Anything seems possible with Quantum Physics.

I like writing just because there is a certain delight to be had in creating something, particularly something that imitates life. Really, being a writer is the closest a mere mortal can come to being a god. I like transcending my own existence, my own biological and self-imposed limitations and creating a new universe with new rules and new people that seem, oh so real to me sometimes, and more compelling in some ways even. I guess I like to be There, on vacation, like, rather than Here all the time. Here is great, don't get me wrong. But There is nice, too.

Tolkien is probably the writer I admire most, because the universe he created was so utterly compelling and absorbing. In fact, with the Simarillion, he created a theology rather superior to the one he professed. He was wise to keep it out of his main work. In the Lord of the Rings, much is left unmentioned, such as, who is Gandalf really and who is Sauron? Where do the Elves go at the end? Well, all of the backstory is revealed in the Simarillion. In fact, I think Tolkien made a plausible extension of the Christian mythology.

Manners

Whether one is right or left on the political sphere, I'm convinced the way to get along in the world is good manners. There is incivility to be found in both houses. I think that social skills are more difficult to grasp than some suppose. So much emphasis nowadays is on technical skills. But social skills are the grease that keeps the engine of society running smoothly.

Quantum Physics

I wonder how many people can follow quantum mechanics. It's traditional, old-school science I like and understand, that is, the science prior to 1920. After Einstein, everything got weird. In school, I was taught primarily Newtonian physics, which handicapped my understanding of the Universe, but that remains at heart my understanding of things. When I read, for instance in the biography of Richard Feynman, that electrons can travel backward and forward in time, just as they travel backward and forward through space, it does not compute, and I do not understand the math either, nor even the high-level explanations or the "easy" analogies offered. I don't understand what is meant by the idea that time has no meaning or does not exist or is strange in a way that I cannot directly observe. To me, time is real. I observe things change, and they do not revert to what they were, either. Perhaps my limitations are biological in nature, and I'm not meant to divine such mysteries. To me, quantum physics reads like magic, and the physicists, like Feynman, are sorcerors that can tap into dangerous, double-edged supernatural forces.

Terrorism

Every time I read the world news, terrorists are killing people in Africa or the Middle East and sometimes even in a civilized country in Europe or the Americas.

Terrorists seem to think of politics as a numbers game, where the more casualties, the bigger their "victory." When dealing with an immoral, absolutely evil foe with such a medieval mindset, it is important to adhere to a 1000:1 ratio for every single life harmed, with the ratio being filled by the homelands, neighborhoods and hiding places of the terrorists. By eliminating the sources of the terrorists, where they are bred, educated and trained, terrorism is eliminated, both in the present and the future. When no more terrorists are born, then there will be no more terrorism. Terrorism is simply a disease, and the way to eradicate disease is the same employed by the body's own immune system. One finds the source of infection, swarms and destroys, and then disposes of the waste. It's a mystery why governments around the world waste trillions of dollars on never-ending wars that drag on decade after decade, when the solution is rather simple and direct. By treating symptoms merely, and not eliminating the sources of infection, we ensure the problem persists into perpetuity. The Romans knew how to deal with terrorism. We can take a page or two from their playbook and quit playing around with terrorists. If they don't want to observe the rules of war, fine, two can play that game.

GOP Staffer

If you're a staffer for a political party, then you want to stay anonymous, or at least not become known for something boneheaded like this.

Hey, pray for a brain while you're at it. Geez.

Ferguson

Put Ferguson into perspective. In India, the cops won't even investigate a murder if one is from a low caste. I think people forget how corrupt and stupid the rest of the world is in comparison to the U.S. Go and destroy everything, and what we will be left with is a place just like India.

I think Ferguson is open and shut. A cop got too rough with a crook. Period. It's not on the same level as the assassination of Harvey Milk, where the killer got off with a very light sentence by the way. Harvey was shot in cold blood in a planned, premeditated fashion, and he had not committed any crime either.

Open any given newspaper to find an example of a black man with a gun, arrested by law enforcement and facing charges. There are an awful lot of examples of this. I would like to know what is proposed to be done about the real problem, thuggery in the black community. That is a bigger problem than an individual incident or even a series of incidents where a law enforcement agent overreacted. Every once in a while there is going to be a mistake made, but that doesn't mean lose all trust in law enforcement and go riot in the street and tear up things and raise hell. I just don't believe all law enforcement is racist, for the simple fact that there are a lot of black cops. I do believe there are racist cops, but I don't think they represent a majority of cops. When there are bad cops, they should be arrested and put into the justice system just like any other offender.

Where is all the gratitude when a killer is taken off the streets? Where is the gratitude for the peace and quiet and calm that is due to effective law enforcement? I think it is nice to not have to worry about killers running around robbing and shooting people, and that is due to law enforcement, not due to protesters getting upset about an incident they did not witness. I still do not have a clear picture of exactly what happened in that incident, but I do know that the deceased had just come back from robbing a store, and that doesn't put a halo on his head. He and his friend were walking in the middle of the road, going out of their way to annoy and inconvenience other people. I'm willing to believe what the cop and the eyewitnesses say about the actions of the deceased.

If there are enough cops on the street carrying firearms and enough violent incidents, then I think it stands to reason there is going to be a certain percentage of cases where those firearms are discharged in a way that people don't like. Things get mixed up in a tussle, and the logical mind finds it difficult to focus, once the fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in. There is a margin of error and it is something anyone with an engineering background understands. Bring imperfect components together, and eventually there is going to be a certain rate of error. That doesn't mean there's a vast conspiracy against blacks or that racism is rampant. It just means that people are human.


I think Ferguson is much ado over nothing. In Ferguson, you have a lot of outsiders coming in bringing their own agenda, pursued by their own demons and projecting their own past and their own experiences onto a separate incident that did not involve them. The violent rhetoric being tossed around is the product of unhealthy minds, some of which lack any sense of fairness or morality. Minds driven by hate, that is what I see in the protesters in Ferguson. The United States is one of the least racist societies in the entire world, particularly compared to extreme racist African nations like Zimbabwe. A glance at Africa overall makes one glad to live in the U.S., a color blind society, where race does not matter, and it is possible to get ahead no matter what background one is from. No country in the world has the amount of legal protections and opportunities for minorities that the United States does. Go to India, Russia, China, Iran, Uganda. Then come back to the U.S. and say with a straight face that they are any better.

Ambition

My ambition is to write a good novel, a real page-turner that readers love to read again and again. I have ideas all the time, but seldom the time, energy or confidence to go through with them. To me, what Tolkien accomplished was magic of the highest order. It is the art form I appreciate most of all, the painting of wondrous pictures that do not mirror reality, but surpass it. Words are my paint, only because I'm untrained and untried and probably unskilled in any other format. I realize words are out of fashion, too, but that's just too bad. I can't all of a sudden change direction and become a painter because everyone is goo-goo over graphics nowadays.

Arrogance

Arrogance amuses me.

The tiniest frog in a small pond croaks loudly, announcing itself as the ruler of the Universe. So many tiny frogs!

Meanwhile, real genius plods along quietly, without the peculiar need to trumpet every little triumph.

And what is Man after all but a slightly evolved primate? Should we be so proud, truly, when suffering and Death claims each of us so soon? When problems intractable beset ourselves and our society? When our very race is ever on the brink of self-annihilation? Bah!

Why I Don't Go to the Movies

Today I saw $25 AMC Regal Cinema gift cards going for $20. It made me wonder whether I would even be interested if they were going for $10. I am certainly not interested at $20.

Long ago, cinema owners went out of their way to make the movie-going experience horrible. Lousy, unhealthy, overpriced food and drinks that I would not feed an animal, commercials!--just like watching TV at home, long lines and exorbitant ticket prices persuaded me only a fool would buy a ticket to see a movie. That is why I have not been out to see a movie for years. I still don't think cinema owners know what time of day it is. In order for cinema owners to draw crowds back in, they would have to make the experience nice, and they have no clue how to do that. I am looking forward to the day when the cinemas close down for good and stay closed and all that space gets used for something interesting like a theater.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Justified

I've been reading a biography of Dr. Richard Feynmann--Genius--and remembered the old controversy, which I first read about in the People's Almanac and later Howard Zinn, regarding President Truman's decision to nuke Japan during WW2. I think later events have confirmed Truman was right to make the difficult decision. One does not condemn entire towns to destruction lightly, but I think that leftists were wrong to ignore the fate of millions of American GI's and their allies. What we did not need in this country were more casualties and expenses from a long, expensive war that was the fault of Japan, Germany and Italy, the aggressors.

Japan should send the U.S. a thank-you note and a gift every year on the anniversary of Hiroshima and on the anniversary of Nagasaki, just to let us know how grateful they are that we ended their vicious military dictatorship and bestowed upon them a gentle, mild, republican form of government under which they have prospered. If the war had continued, then much needless bloodletting would have occurred, and many men would not have returned from that war, which would impact many generations far into the future. Sometimes the patient requires a harsh medicine to eliminate an infection.

Whenever an evil, warmongering tyranny gets its due, that is not an atrocity, that is poetic justice. In truth, we should and would have nuked Berlin, if the bomb had been ready, and it may be that Germany would have been better off for it, if it could have avoided the destruction caused by the last year of conventional warfare and the separation of their territory into two opposing sides, East and West.

I find Feynmann's life inspiring. The U.S. gained much due to its milder anti-Semitism. We were not entirely benevolent to the Jews but certainly much more welcoming than Europe. When Nazi Germany began persecuting the Jews, they lost one-fourth of their physicists, among other intellectuals. Of course it was stupid, self-destructive, pseudoscientific nonsense on their part, just like homophobia is today. Purge people at random for no good reason, and you stand to lose some of your best and brightest, as well as a lot of innocent and good people.

99% of Traffic is Spam

There. I've said it.

99% of all traffic to this blog is generated by spam affiliates from Russia and the Ukraine, the unsavory crime-ridden ghettoes of cyberspace, and other locales in eastern Europe and China.

Why they waste their time scanning this blog probably has to do with mentions of Putin and other keywords, but even before I started blogging about that, they were responsible for at least 50% of the traffic.

Self-promoting Symantec did no one any favors by revealing their discovery of Regin and should be fined several billion dollars or nationalized outright. Symantec did not discover the Regin virus until too late, and its discovery is more in the lines of a confession than a scoop. I do not use overpriced Symantec anti-virus, a system resource hog. Why pay for these ineffective antiviruses that cannot detect viruses, when quiet, effective Microsoft Security Essentials (or Windows Defender) is 100% free?

Russia really needs a lot of  cyberespionage directed at it, and if the NSA is not responsible, then the NSA would be irresponsible. Under Putin, Russia represents evil incarnate, and any means used against it are justified, in the same way that any means are justified against the HIV virus or Ebola. Putrid Putin has the same level of morality, philosophy and aesthetic taste as the Ebola or HIV virus, which is to say none at all, and he has the same influence upon the world. To support Putrid and his Putridity is to be aligned with evil. I hope to see the day when Putrid is put in the ground where he belongs. Dump his carcass in the same pit as his soul-mate Stalin. He murdered Russia's democracy.

Obamacare's Stupidity

The most damnfool thing Obama did was to create a penalty for folks that don't sign up for health care because they can't afford it. Yes, one can apply for exemptions, but I have discovered it to be an onerous, time-wasting experience that can take 40 - 60 hours of paperwork and phone calls with Health and Human Services. Basically, HHS wants about 20 documents proving that one's income is low, and they request almost every bit of sensitive financial information available, opening up the applicant to the horrors of identity theft if that information gets lost in the mails. That is why the Democrats richly deserved defeat in the 2014 election, because they suffered from extreme mental retardation in taxing the poor between $95 - $1000, adding insult to injury to those who cannot afford health insurance due to financial hardship.Why Obama and the Democrats declared war on the poor and the middle class, I don't know, but they did, and I am one of the ones suffering because of the class warfare seeking to further impoverish the already poor. What we don't need in this country is additional paperwork requirements on top of the already heavy burden. Maybe the Democratic elite can afford to sit around all day filling out papers, but those who work for a living have other priorities, such as putting food on the table. The penalty should not exist, was a stupid idea, and let us hope the Republicans have sense enough to tweak that part of the plan rather than eliminating health care altogether. That perhaps may be too optimistic.

Sucks To Be Poor

I was not too pleased to read about Microsoft replacing security guards with robots. They probably spent a princely sum on the robots, all for the sake of giving some poor guys making $15 an hour the pink slip.

At least the idle aristocrats of Downton Abbey had enough of a conscience to employ the lower classes and think about their welfare. There is something to be said for sharing the wealth and bringing employment to a community, and yes, Microsoft does "owe" the community in which it does business.

It has always sucked to be poor, perhaps more so before the advent of Obamacare, but in the future, all bets are off. Computers and robots keep getting smarter, whereas our pace of evolution is at a standstill according to most authorities. It's not our fault that we can't replace the "chip" inside our brains with a newer and faster "chip". Biological science has not yet advanced to the stage where we can design our offspring or ourselves.

I think that as more people become unemployed and unemployable due to the replacement of humans with computers, there will be a larger group of hungry, poor, discontented people, eager for any type of change, including war. Of course nothing will be done to stop global warming, and the coming scarcity of resources such as drinking water, food and electricity will be a huge pressure upon the lower classes.

 The writing on the wall is evident in the U.S. Our vast army of law enforcement officers, already unprecedented in its numbers and resources, will expand and transform, under Republican leadership and guidance, into a kind of Schutzstaffel, eliminating "undesirables," that is, the lower class, and protecting the property of the rich, more or less as it does now. The rich today murder and go free, whereas the poor are jailed and occasionally killed for the slightest infraction. Ferguson could be a harbinger of things to come. Perhaps in the final analysis, it is a good thing that the U.S. has such liberal gun laws, because the Schutzstaffel of the future will not hold all the cards.

I really hope that sanity prevails. I also hope that our scientists develop a way to improve the human animal. Throughout history, science has proven more of a beneficial influence on the human condition and especially on the lower classes than any politicians. Just learning how to prevent the spread of common diseases by washing hands on a regular basis was a huge step forward in medical science and of greater value than anything any politician ever did. The nurses and doctors that insisted upon hand-washing were great heroes of civilization.

I hope that the right-wingers that America elected into office don't drag the country down into war, famine, disease and misery. Just because there is something that makes people happy and more productive does not mean that you have to destroy it. Republicans want to end Obamacare, immigration liberalization and even the minimum wage, and they don't seem to care about Social Security either. What is so bad about paying a worker $11 an hour instead of $7.25 an hour? It seems to me that right-wingers want to pull the wings off butterflies just for the sake of doing it. And then there are some people that would rather pay $1 million for a damn robot than $30,000 a year for a human being to work a job. What is the human supposed to do? Join Islamic jihad?

Keystone Pipeline

I've decided I'm for the Keystone Pipeline's expansion. Environmentalists oppose it because they mistakenly think that extracting oil from tar sands is more environmentally damaging than conventional oil extraction. They fail to understand the economics of oil. Every dollar we send the Muslims in the Middle East gets used on terrorism, sooner or later, one way or the other, which means the U.S. has to transport men, equipment and resources thousands of miles and conduct bombing raids and long-term missions costing trillions of dollars and pumping gigatons of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. The very idea that getting oil from Alberta is worse than getting it from the fanatics in Saudi Arabia and Iran is offensive to common sense. For my part, I would rather pay the Canadians twice for their oil, than pay the Muslim fanatics once, and I think any environmental damage calculated by environmentalists will inevitably fail to take into consideration the cost of terrorism and fanaticism in the Middle East. What we don't need in Washington, D.C. is defeatist, stupid rhetoric about global warming that fails to take into consideration today's reality that we need oil, period, end of discussion, and don't want to hear anymore about it. Build the goddamn pipeline already and let's quit funding the global Islamic jihad and the butchering of Christians. A dollar sent to the Arabs is a dollar spent on putting a bullet through the head of a Westerner either today or tomorrow. The only thing the Arabs use money for is their own pleasure and Islamic jihad. They perform zero scientific research, contribute zero to civilization, morality and culture, and have nothing to say about any of the sciences and any of the arts. At least Canada is a civilized country, so let's do business with them.

Israel

The United States is fortunate we don't have a sizable population of fanatical Muslims who despise education and think the only legitimate purpose in life is terrorism. I'm not as concerned about the immigrants from south of the Border. They seem pretty mild-mannered compared to the lunatics that Israel has to deal with. Really, Israel behaves with remarkable, saint-like restraint, considering the provocations they receive on a daily basis.

Aid in the Middle East?

ISIS beheads Western aid workers that are trying to help people in the Middle East.

What if Western countries behead the family of jihadists and post the video on YouTube? That we don't do that, but ISIS does, demonstrates our moral superiority. Even so, it would be a good idea to revoke the citizenship of all families that have jihadi members. Exile them where they belong, in the middle of Syria. They can fantasize about blowing themselves up for Allah all they want over there. The stupidity of Islam belongs in the Middle East, land of the crazy.


The only "aid" the Middle East needs is carpet-bombing. Food, medical aid, and money are entirely unnecessary and only exacerbate the problem over there. It is like dropping cupcakes into a roach nest. You're just going to get more roaches as a result. Sooner or later they raise the black flag with chicken-scratch on it and start killing anyone that doesn't believe the same things they do.

Weed Say Nay

Weed Say Go

When forgotten is the one that fed us in ancientdom,
and spirit has need to feed, then feed it may on weed.






Weed Say Nay


When spirit knows not pain,
then in the material world remain,

For that too has many wonders.


I find that weed makes me moderate and mild, a wall-flower content to be a wall-flower. Of course it is not easy to be productive under the influence. There are times when I think weed can be helpful, but perhaps it is mainly for vacationers and retirees who have time and resources to spend traveling in the spirit world.

Unknown Dungeon Crawl Bug

I have profited from an unknown bug in the latest Dungeon Crawl that transforms formicids into truly awesome beings. Of course, I see no reason to inform the devs. They read my blog anyway and seem to clip away those parts of the game I happen to be using to my advantage. So, perhaps ten years from now I may mention my precise exploit...or not. But wait, now. Am I really using formicids? Perhaps I'm using felids instead. Or orcs. My memory isn't very precise on these matters of exploitable information.

I alone in the world, apparently, am aware of a bug that is immediately evident from the very start of the game and has survived many a version. I think it will be safe from detection for quite some time, well-hidden as it is, for the devs cannot find it without divining my secret, although there is always the danger they will stumble upon it by accident, as I did.

No Duh

High-falutin business executives are as stupid as wood when it comes to computers. Who would have thought?

I think the easiest thing in the world for a hacker to do is target a CEO, because those people are as stupid as the day is long in my experience. They know nothing, but know certain important people, hence their job and their salary. Never ask a CEO to think about anything, because they don't think. They hire people to do all their thinking for them and tell them what to think. So in order to extract sensitive financial and technological information from a corporation, all one has to do is deceive a damned fool, the top leader of that corporation, and that's pretty easy to do.

"Oh, I'm in at a fancy hotel owned by god knows who. It must be okay to use the Internet here and chat all night long about secrets that are worth millions of dollars. It must be okay... because I'm frankly too lazy and too stupid to think about why it might not be okay."

Really I think most CEOs are not worth even a tenth portion of their salary. I have yet to see any that are really admirable. Fancy suit, good at public speaking, bold and confident, good with people's names--that's about as far as it goes. Okay, you remembered my name. Maybe I forgot yours. Big goddamn deal. Could you reason your way out of a paper bag? The only thing most CEOs know is about sending jobs over to China to save on labor costs, stabbing Uncle Sam in the back. For that, they get millions or billions in bonuses. Whup-de-do, you're a genius. That's what the CEO knows, along with strike-breaking and slashing salaries and benefits.

The Internet's Not Fair

We didn't evolve to use the Internet. Period.

We evolved to live in a world where we could whisper and not usually be heard. A world where we could say disposable, temporary things that then become mere hearsay. A world where we could speak our minds, in other words.

The Internet is unforgiving. It never forgets and it never forgives. This is one excellent reason to strive toward anonymity in one's public postings. Yet one must also remember that if the fancy struck them, law enforcement could unmask an anonymous person in all of five minutes at maximum. Very little effort is required and apparently no warrant these days, when the Bill of Rights is held as an obsolete document binding common folk only and not anyone in government.

So I do feel sorry for the random folks that just don't get the Internet, just aren't prepared for the modern world we live in and just can't deport themselves online with the requisite caution. Working people such as this public school teacher can lose their jobs over ill-considered utterances along the lines of Kill Whitey. Sitting around at home in the evening while in one's cups leads folks to say their heart-felt desires and fears, as has been the case for thousands of years, but today it brings profound social consequences. Perhaps lack of social awareness and lack of discipline is sufficient cause for a teacher to be fired. Teaching has always been a politically and socially sensitive role. Socrates was put to death for less. For my part, I would prefer that the teacher be granted a reprieve in exchange for a public apology, because this could be a learning experience not just for her but for students and teachers around the country as well. Let the teacher be if she apologizes and retracts the offending words, with the understanding that any additional offense will result in termination. I would also recommend that she should get off Twitter, get off Facebook and stay off. It's not hard and would be for the best. What is so great about being connected 24/7? We need to disengage ourselves sometimes.

Through long and painful experience, I have learned to, first of all, moderate what I say, so that nothing said is violent or threatening, unless it be toward the official enemies of the country I live in. In my best state of mind, I don't approve of violent of threatening impulses, but a plant will absorb certain elements of the environment it finds itself in. In the second place, I control which venue of the Internet I express my opinions. A little-known blog is a good sandbox to deposit my perhaps controversial opinions, which nobody cares about in the first place. People aren't terribly interested in other people's opinions, it turns out, unless those opinions coincide with their own. As we conceal certain portions of our body, we also should conceal certain portions of our thoughts in order to get along with others. I want to get along not only with those who think as I do on politics, but with everyone that I possibly can. If a so-called conservative likes me first, then finds out in stages that I am liberal, then I am a good ambassador of the liberal cause, and he may have cause to question his opinions. If first the conservative find out I am liberal, then they may never like me at all, because tribalism kicks in and they view me through a distorted lens.

Poison for Putin

The way to check Russia over its brinksmanship is by proactively shooting their planes from the sky the minute they seem the slightest bit aggressive. The same policy should be employed against Russian naval vessels.

Assassins should be dispatched to improve Putin's mind by rendering it into fertilizer. A bit of obscure poison would do the trick, as that old KGB hand Putin has done to his own enemies in the past. Think on the difference to world history if Hitler had been assassinated. There are times when assassination is morally justified, and the case of Putin certainly makes a potent argument for a potent poison. Putin deserves death a thousand times over. Place Putin in the grave as a warning to those that follow.

Iraq & Syria as Magnets

It's actually a good thing Iraq and Syria act like magnets for all the radical Muslim hotheads around the world. Concentrate 'em in one place and bomb 'em to hell. That sounds like a better scenario than their lingering in the West causing mischief here at home. Assimilate or annihilate. The West is never going to be the land of the Koran.

The Daily Show is Righteous

The Daily Show is probably the most moral television that has ever existed. Today I watched an episode where the show actually took one of its own advertisers to task. I thought to myself, "Only the Daily Show would do that. In a hundred years, only the Daily Show." It really is the one television show that is worth watching above all others. That single show is better than all the content of all the other channels, combined, that is, if one has a sense of humor, morality, and cares about this country at all. I always get the sense that the Daily Show will be one of the very few television shows still watched a thousand years from now. There will be, as there is now, great interest in it.

Lynch

Loretta Lynch seems perfect for the job of Attorney General in a lot of different ways. Obama is handing the Republicans a hand grenade. Reject her, and the racism will be pretty obvious and blatant. I like her already.

I just hope she has a more realistic attitude toward marijuana than Eric Holder did. Holder lived in a fantasy world where marijuana is arsenic. In the real world, marijuana is non-toxic and non-addictive. Let's hope Lynch lives in the real world rather than a paranoid-fantasy world.

NX Not Worth Playing

Nemelex Xobeh is not worth playing anymore for any player in Dungeon Crawl. The devs decided they didn't like NX, so they made him unplayable. I think Dungeon Crawl may have reached a point of diminishing returns, where instead of creating new features, the devs just clip the features that they don't understand or else manipulate the game so that it favors their particular cherished class/profession. NX used to make the Mummy race playable...

Mexico, Crime Capital of the World

After reading about the mass-murder of college students, and given the drug war and the massive corruption that is commonplace in Mexico, I would not visit Mexico even if all expenses were paid and $10,000 were offered. I think tourism to Mexico is really suffering, because no one with half a brain would go to that hell-hole of crime, depravity and corruption. Mexico should just abolish itself and become a dependency of the United States. As a country, it is not worth preserving.

Milk Does a Body No Good

Turns out milk is bilk. The government recommended milk for generations just to bilk consumers out of their money. The government provides a lot of things, but objective truth isn't one of them. Look no further than the government's policy on marijuana to confirm that our laws are based upon lies. One goes to jail for longer for marijuana than for murdering someone. People get off scot-free if they kill, like O.J. Simpson did, but if they get caught with enough weed, they can go to the slammer for life. Really many of our laws were crafted with a narrow agenda, simply to boost one product or another and eliminate or reduce competition from another product. This is because politicians sell their hearts and minds to the highest bidder with no regard to what might be good for the country.

NORML's Happy

I'm not too pleased by the Republicans' takeover of the Senate, but NORML's happy, and they have good reason to be so. People may be voting Republican, but they are also voting to legalize marijuana, and it's about time. One day, the U.S. may revert the status of cannabis back to the way it was prior to the 1930s. Weed was never a problem in the U.S. until the politicians got it in their head to make it into a problem. The U.S. does not need any artificially manufactured problems. We have enough real problems to deal with. It is time for the politicians to get their act together and recognize what science says about cannabis.

Religious Fascists

Religious fascists wasted no time condemning a young woman's choice of suicide over daily suffering with a terminal illness. They want to put people like her in jail. I think she was right to make the choice that she did. Culture of death, my foot.

I think that religious fascists are the ones that belong in jail, or at any rate away from civilized society, whether they are Muslim or Christian or whatever that makes them want to interfere in other people's lives. They suffer from a severe mental illness, the compulsion to control other people, and need to be treated psychologically. One doubts that traditional educational methods would work for the religious fascist. Electroshock therapy, administered daily, simulating the pain and suffering the young woman above experienced, is just the thing to get them to understand that sometimes, people want to die and that they should have that basic human right.

We as a species are moving away from a culture of darkness and death, which is religious fascism, and toward a culture of reason, which is aligned with all that is good in the world. The religious fascists know that they have lost. They know they are on the wrong side of history. Some of them even know that they are wrong and that they serve the darkness. They are in it because religion is easy money. Not much work involved, is there, honey?

Climate Change

Now that gay marriage is all but certain to be the law of the land, climate change will be the next huge political issue in the U.S., and as usual, Republicans are on the wrong side of it. The cost to reduce carbon emissions is miniscule, laughable really, but Republicans act like doing anything will destroy the economy. Just like gay marriage destroyed marriage, huh? D'oh! And I suppose legalized marijuana will end the civilized world as we know it. The hysteria just goes on and on. Why do people find it so difficult to think?

The Closet

The closeting of so many gay and lesbian people back in the day meant that there was nobody around to talk to when I was growing up gay. Therefore, like many before me, I grew up believing I was the only one in the whole wide world, despite there being hundreds of millions of us, as we now know for a fact. Back in those days, the occasional gays outed in the media seemed remote and alien, unfathomable, unreal even, impossible to imagine. Meanwhile, the environment at school, where anybody who was gay kept quiet about it, meant no boyfriends and no real friends, no one that could understand me or what made me tick. There were some people I suspected probably were gay, but they were just as confused and uncertain as I was, if not more so.

The one best friend I had in middle school betrayed me in high school, becoming an enemy after he calculated it would serve his interests better. Due to his paranoid, unhappy mother, he belonged to a small church that was crazy and right-wing, and he wanted to please his mother, so he believed it was wrong to smile and good to frown, and all he did served that end. I never recall his mother smiling in all the days I knew her, so she had picked her church well. Now I smile to think that he lives on Queen St.

I used to want to write an autobiography because I thought that the people from my past and myself were important, but over the years, I decided that the opposite was true. I am not important, first of all. There is little from the past I want to remember, and many of the people from my past, that is to say friends and associates in school, were not particularly pleasant, to put it mildly. I am a loyal friend, one who tends to remember and repay good deeds, like a social accountant, and so in my writing, I used to feel obliged to express this loyal, sentimental fondness for old friends, even ones that betrayed me, due to random kindnesses I remembered, and I have a long memory, but like an infatuated lover, I had glossed over their faults, forgiven their sins, only remembering later in bits and pieces that puzzled me at first until I grasped the meaning. They are best left to oblivion. I even have trouble recalling some of their names. Drink deep of Lethe.

What is important is now. Now is the only thing relevant. Now I am out. There is no big deal about being gay. That is an old thing, an established thing, and is no longer important, no more than other physical or intellectual traits. Now I have a husband. Now I have a happy and stable life and hope for the future. Now I have ordered my life in a reasonable facsimile of the way I think things ought to be. Now is fuel for writing, for creativity energized by positive good, rather than drawing upon the powers of darkness.

Voting

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who doesn't vote has no business complaining about the government. The government doesn't require that much of citizens in comparison to Ancient Egypt. If more people voted, then more people would pay attention to what is going on in politics. People who aren't paying attention are the reason this country is in the mess it is in.

How to Handle ISIS Volunteers

When British or American ISIS militants return home, they should be treated as armed enemy combatants on the front line in a time of war. If their families take them in, then their families are clearly armed ISIS militants and should be treated in a similar fashion. Since ISIS cannot be trusted to abide by anything, there is no point in negotiating with them or allowing surrender.

There are too many radical Muslims in the West. They came over just for money with no other reason. They have no morality. Their loyalty is not to the West, but to their primitive and evil cult of savagery, which is based upon the acts of murder, looting and rape. Revoke their citizenship, but get them out of the West. Dropping radical Muslims from bombers along with bombs would be the most economical way to repatriate them with the Middle East. America does not have all the money in the world to be spent upon educating radical Muslim barbarians. We need to be spending more taxpayer money for the taxpayer's benefit and not to compensate for the lack of Muslim birth control.

More News from Putridity

Putin's Putridity, Russia, having invaded and conquered a neighboring country without any cause but greed, is increasingly flying bombers near Western cities. I think there is an increased potential that the West may have to nuke Russia at some point, with Putin or his cohorts in charge. The world would not much miss a region that brought us only communist dictatorship, war, vodka, Russian Orthodoxy, bad manners, bad art, and bad music.

Give Judge Douglas a Break

I think it's wrong to give blackmailers the time of day. The Canadian justice system is considering whether to kick a judge off the bench because a low-life, lying, double-dealing, blackmailing scumbag posted nude photographs of her on the Internet. I think she should be exonerated, and the case dismissed out of hand. Who cares about nude photographs anyway? Is society not past that yet? I don't think seeing Obama nude or the Pope nude would fundamentally affect my opinion of either one of them. Is it so extremely difficult to imagine what people look like without clothes? I think the entire situation is preposterous. Dismiss the case and let the judge go on about her business. A big fat WHO GIVES A DAMN applies here. Tell the blackmailer where he can go!

Light Charges

I don't know what's wrong with the justice system that murder is counted so lightly in today's courts. Apparently one can kill a person and either get off scot-free or just serve a few years. The case where a college student died during a so-called "hazing ritual" should result in capital murder charges against all of the defendants, who should be put to death if found guilty. Manslaughter, my foot. When someone is beaten to death on a bus, you can squirt all the sugar-coating on it you like, but it is still a stinking murder, no better than if the victim were shot to death at point-blank range in broad daylight.

Comcast

One thing's for sure, I'm not signing up with Comcast. If even half of what O'Rourke says is so, Comcast looks as bad as they come. The Public Relations cost alone is probably in the millions, in terms of potential lost customers.

Neanderthals

The Register writes about everything, including Neanderthals, in an amusing way.

Fine France

France should be expelled from NATO for making ransom payments to ISIS. Alternatively, they could be fined one thousand dollars for each dollar they paid to the terrorist organization. As an enabler that finances terrorism, France must be compelled to pay reparations to the victims of terrorism. At this time, American taxpayers are victims of ISIS, because our money is being used to attack ISIS. France should therefore pay American citizens.

In another story, turns out France is getting millions of euros in welfare. Of course, France plans to use all that money to finance terrorism around the world. Britain should abandon the E.U. and join instead with a trade union with the U.S. It seems to me that taxpayers in the U.K. and the U.S. have to pay the bill for the mistakes committed by other countries. We should instead demand reparations and receive dividends from every war.

Media Should Focus on Heroes

The media should focus on heroes, such as Mr. Vickers, rather than terrorists or insane criminals. The reason some people have a false impression about the world is that the media trumpets negativity rather than an accurate and mostly positive depiction of reality.

Purchasing Test for Computer Hardware

What do I look at when I need to purchase computer hardware?

The key word here is "need." Do I really need the damn thing after all? I hate spending money. Everyone should. The world would be a financially sounder place if the rest of the human race would stop and think about their purchases before making them. If the benefit to me outweighs, in my view, the cost, then I proceed to the next question. If I can afford to make a discretionary purchase even after saving for retirement and medical expenses and the proverbial rainy day--then and only then I'll buy. I do not believe in using credit for anything other than a home mortgage, even for the sake of the stupid one per cent rewards that credit card companies offer. No. Cash money up front, every time. No exceptions. Go by that rule, and you will live a calmer life. Credit card companies are parasites feeding upon the mentally feeble.

The first thing I look at with computer hardware is what other people are saying about it. Reputation matters. If a lot of people are having problems with a product, then there is probably something wrong with it. The other thing I look at is Linux compatibility. If a piece of hardware is not Linux-compatible, then it is a piece of garbage in my view. When computer systems reach retirement age, they evolve from Windows systems to Linux systems. I don't want any nasty surprise waiting for me ten years from now with a scanner, printer, video card or external enclosure for a hard drive. The #1 thing I look at is does it work in Linux. If not, pass.

Generally I buy the absolute minimum that I need and only purchase hardware that has been around for a while. Newly introduced hardware has two problems. First, it is more expensive. Second, it is untested and may have as yet unidentified problems. I know exactly how much testing many manufacturers do. The answer is not enough. The rush to market is insane, and quality controls just don't matter to the manager-types looking to boost sales figures. Again, I want to see a lot of positive reviews from respectable sources about a product, and then I might buy it. If other people are having a problem with the product, and the problem is not related to their ignorance, then I don't want that product.

In summary:

-I can afford it
-I really need it
-Good reputation of the manufacturer and the specific product
-Linux-compatible AND moreover, works very well with Linux (positive reviews help here)
-Been out for a while, not brand new
-Good price

How Much to Spend for an HTPC

An HTPC really requires very little in computer hardware, I've discovered. A low-end Intel Haswell Celeron cpu (~$50), with its built-in Intel HD graphics, paired with 2 gigs of RAM is ample to render 1080p using any free Linux distro, though I'm partial to XFCE desktops such as Linux Mint Xfce. Anything more than 2 gigs is overkill, pure and simple. I stripped my HTPCs of their 4 gig sticks and reduced them to 2 gigs and noticed absolutely no difference in performance.

Linux really shines as an HTPC, and I don't understand why anyone would want to use Windows for that purpose. There's no reason at all. Why pay the license fee? Why wait twice as long for startup? Why bother installing an anti-virus? Also, if you go the Windows route, you certainly will want 4 gigs as opposed to 2 gigs. Windows is just more expensive all the way around, and there really is no need for it when the computer is intended to be an HTPC.

I steer clear of any AMD chips nowadays for two big reasons. One, AMD is wasteful when it comes to energy efficiency. Their low-energy offerings are pathetic and simply aren't worth considering against an Intel Celeron. Two, AMD's ATI graphics are horrible on Linux. I've run into nothing but problems trying to get their Catalyst driver working in Linux, to the point where I say "Never again." I won't even buy AMD chips for a Windows system, and why? Because eventually that Windows computer may one day be converted to Linux, and I don't ever want to have to deal with installing Catalyst in Linux. I don't think Catalyst runs that great in Windows either. The only video graphics I am willing to consider are Intel and Nvidia.

An SSD isn't really required for an HTPC in any way, shape or form, although I rather like using SSD for the operating system, simply because it allows fast booting. I consider an SSD a luxury.

Everyone should have an HTPC, and nowadays cost is not a barrier. Used computer components are amazingly cheap these days. There's only one component I will never buy used, and that's a hard drive. I have learned from hard experience to always buy new with a lengthy warranty. Refurbished or used hard drives just seem to fail at an extremely high rate in my experience, and I avoid them now. I think the main reason anyone would sell a hard drive is that the seller has doubts about its longevity. Well, the seller knows best. If he's selling his drive, it must be on death's door. Word to the wise.

Good for the Bishops

I'm pleased the Catholic bishops nixed welcoming gays in the Church. Anything to decrease the number of Catholics, I'm in favor of. Don't stop there, bishops. Please alienate more minority groups. Lack of social skills, social awareness and basic intelligence is the main reason that the Catholic church isn't what it used to be, and that's a good thing, because the Catholic church is a bad thing. Anytime someone with a little bit of brains tries to do something good in the church, the overwhelming majority of nitwits will veto it, because that's what Catholicism is all about, being a nitwit. The non-Catholic countries are all doing better in every possible way than the Catholic countries and have done so for a very long time. Perhaps having fundamentally the wrong idea about human existence has a catastrophic effect on a lot of other things in a society as well. Having a good philosophy has a lot of benefits--measurable benefits.

Turkey

To the extent Turkey assists ISIL, Turkey should be treated in exactly the same way as ISIL. More and more, Turkey seems like Iran, and less like anything approaching a modern republic. It is devolving into another terrorist state, perhaps the final destination for all Muslim countries. The only way Islam spreads is through violence, because it is inherently a violent religion based upon rape, murder, and fascism.

I Credit the Pope for Brains

The Catholic Church certainly seems to be acting in its own self-interest to stem the bleeding of numbers. Yes, Pope Francis, play nice with the gays and quit the quibbles over contraception. Then the Church might, might just, be able to stem the tide a little bit.

Once a soul has been disenchanted with the Church, pretty much they are free forever, shod of religion altogether, in my experience. There was a long, long horrific period when many churches pretty much declared themselves the enemies of gays, for no scriptural, moral or rational reason, but for pure prejudice and ignorance, which was stupid. Result? A considerable percentage of gays are atheists, agnostics or at least non-traditional in their spiritual beliefs. Thank you for that. That was a gift, the liberation of many minds, including my own. Who knows, I might be tithing otherwise. Now that the Church is getting intelligent for a change, the atheists are going to have to step up their game. It used to be that atheists had to do nothing to make converts. The Church made converts to atheism on its own.

In the future, we will see, but my money is still on the atheists and the spiritualists. The Church always seems a generation behind the times, doing the right thing only when it doesn't matter anymore and their position has already become irrelevant.

The Goddess just laughs at all of this drama.

Donating to Terrorism

I don't understand all the billions being donated to Palestinians after their Gaza War. They need to be paying reparations to Israel to pay for the cost of the war, which was all their fault. The West is stupid in that it keeps paying the terrorists to buy more weapons, then bombs the terrorists after they kill civilians, which is what terrorists do. The only people making money in this scenario are the arms merchants, who apparently control our governments through bribery and corruption.

Pakistupid

Pakistan is populated by savages, if this story is any indication of the general mentality. Why is Islam such an evil cult?

At least the noun makes sense in English:

Is • lam(e)

The minute someone reveals their muslimitis, or infection of the brain by Islam, their estimated morality plunges below average.

A No-Brainer

This particular legal question should be a no-brainer, but one never knows. I'm rather appalled that Amazon continues to abuse its warehouse workers even after all the bad press they have received. That makes me feel better about not buying things from Amazon, since they now hit their customers with state sales tax.

Amazon, if any one of your products costs $0.01 more than any other retailer on the Internet, then I'm not buying from you, because morally you're just the same if not worse. There is zero loyalty to Amazon. I get a creepy feeling just thinking about the people that run Amazon. They have no morals, so what's to stop them from selling tainted or defective products, other than fear of punishment?

Fleecing the Sheep

What amused me most on the occasions I tuned in to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck were the commercials. Gold was being pushed big-time, and at a time when gold was already oversold. Those cynical advertisers certainly knew where to find the goldbugs. Obama the Muslim Anti-Christ was going to bring on the Apocalypse, and only gold would retain any value, see. It's common sense, don't ya know.

Well, turns out gold has fallen from 1700/oz to 1200/oz this year. That is a double-digit decline, and the bottom of the market is not even in sight yet. I expect that the market will fall to as low as $800 an ounce. Looks to me like the right-wing sheep have been shorn, and those gold merchants are cackling all the way to the bank. I suppose they knew their audience and capitalized upon them. Ain't that just the beauty of Capitalism?

I may not the greatest forecaster of markets, but I know one thing. Buy cheap, sell dear.

And if an investment is being sold through paid advertisements, then it definitely is not a good investment. I wouldn't be interested in anything sold by commercial on Fox News, because it would be tainted already in my view. Something is wrong with the program, and something is wrong with the products being promoted during breaks.

Good Memories

When a loved one dies, whether friend or family, one remembers the good days, the Spring, Summer and Fall, but not the Winter of life. The same applies as when savoring a pot of tea--can it be judged by the dregs? I cherish the good memories, but dismiss the last stages of decline as being irrelevant, other than providing a lesson. I will probably want to skip the very worst stages of decline myself rather than endure them, because I don't really see the point, all things considered. I don't put any stock in religious notions of leaving existence "in God's hands." I will place my own existence in my own hands, thank you very much, and keep the change. Indeed, we are the hands of God.

New Espionage Post for China in New York

China purchased a new espionage headquarters in New York City today--the Waldorf Astoria, where lots of Western elite discuss secret and personal matters. How much do you want to bet that the top business and political leaders in the U.S. will be totally clueless and book rooms there without any awareness that everything they do, say, and transmit through cyberspace will go directly to China?

If You Booze, You Lose

Based on the content of the some of the comments I've received, particularly from Anonymous readers, I am recommending the Freethinkers Alcoholics Anonymous web site to help those damaged and impaired minds kick their addiction to alcohol. Hell is found in a bottle. Remember, if you booze, you lose. Be a winner. Stop drinking, and start Thinking. Turn that frown upside down!

China's Hired Thugs

More news from Hong Kong. I really don't see how anyone can defend China. Whatever it was before, a communist dictatorship evolving into a capitalist dictatorship, right now it's a kleptocracy, with crooks holding the power and unwilling to share any with the people.

A country with no morality at all and no legitimate legal system and no free press and no uncensored Internet is not the country I want to download software from. For that matter, I don't think our Western business leaders are wise to send all our jobs over to China. They may make a little money in the short-term but in the long-term they or their descendents will regret that fateful decision.

Young People Have to Tackle Climate Change

The young people are going to have to tackle climate change, because they are the ones that will be chiefly impacted by it--they and, moreover, their descendents. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that they are politically active and intensely engaged in the electoral process.

I'm sure that is the case. I'm sure young people are very concerned about politics right now, and not too interested in video games, mobile devices, music or social media. I'm sure everyone in the 18-25 range is voting in every election and reading about politics on a daily basis.

If not, too bad for them. The planet, she is a-changing, and there's not really much being done to stop the changing. Pretty much business as usual is the rule of the day. Either people are interested in politics, or they're not. They don't see climate change as impacting their daily lives yet. By the time it does, that will be too late. Surely the stock market will suffer repercussions. Betting on those 401-K's probably isn't as safe as people think it is. More of a gamble, I would think, a gamble that the investments will actually pay off, that the market will be around, the government be around. Governments, companies, and the wealth of nations have come and gone in human history. I bet the Romans thought their government would be around forever. Well, it wasn't. One day the barbarians took over and stole all the crown jewels. It used to be that England was one of the richest countries in the world. Of course, America has lost much wealth in recent history, due to the stupidity of the leaders who will just blow money on anything, money that the nation does not have, by the way. Deeper in debt we go, year after year.

Perhaps the survivalists are right, and it's a good time to stockpile food, tools, and weapons. The trouble with their strategy lies in predicting the actual timing and severity of calamity. Climate change by its very nature is unpredictable. I would expect random, gradual alterations rather than anything sudden that would justify hiding in a hole. I'm not against hiding in a hole. Certainly an underground cave would be preferable to above-ground radiation, extreme climate, or violent conflict. I think survivalists may be trapped in a nuclear apocalypse mindset, thinking that a crisis will be sharp and sudden, rather than slow and inexorable. It is difficult for me to believe that nations would be foolish enough to exchange nuclear weapons against each other. Self-preservation is a powerful instinct.