Tariffs

I don't believe all the crap I read in the news media about the tariffs and the trade war. Truth is, the media and the elite hit the snooze button while America burned. Factories closed, cities fell into ruin and decay, and nowadays, many millions of American working people juggle multiple part-time gigs just to get by, never mind saving for retirement or having any medical insurance. The elite could give a crap about workers. Sure, they are against any trade war, against any tariff that may impact their stock investments. To hell with all of them, they deserve the ruin they wrought upon others.

The United States requires zero trade with other countries. No trade is not such a bad scenario for us. These United States have sufficient natural resources. No goods need be imported, ever again. The other countries can bicker and squabble among themselves, and China can continue employing their slave labor and polluting their cities. Everything that is needed can be produced here in the U.S. of A. If other countries want to get in to this lucrative, wealthy market, well then, perhaps they can just hurry their behind over to the bargaining table.

How to Ward Off a Hare-brained Occultist

A cross is effective against vampires, and some Christians get frightened by a simple pentagram, so what scares a hare-brained occultist?

Well, I brought up Science, and a popular scientific experiment, and Lordy, that occultist cleared out. Science is their cross, their pentagram. The notion that all their fancies will be proven false, and they will be made a laughingstock scares them away.

Wise is to avoid conflict with Science, by co-opting it into one's beliefs, as I believe the Catholic Church has been doing for the past hundred years. Science revises Man's conceptions and understanding of all things, including magic. It is unwise to hold magic as a special egg immune to the overwhelming penetrative power of scientific inquiry. Why can the two not be as one?

Zombie

My dream seemed commonplace and unscary, only because it was inspired by the many zombie shows. A friend of mine, who I cannot even remember, came to school, but he was dead, and his body showed signs of being, well, past its prime. People complained, but not in a hysterical way like you would think. The more I think about the premise, the more it seems illogical. He was pale as a ghost, and certainly did not act normal, but was not threatening in any way, just, well, dead--animated dead.

I don't know what the significance of that dream was, or what possible relation it would have to my life. I don't even know the friend was or if it was indeed a friend. I think the whole thing was a bad TV show. I decided, no more wearing a pentagram in bed.

School Shooters

It would be satisfying to take the latest school shooter, string him up in his front yard, and leave him there until the crows pick his bones clean. Then incinerate bones, home, and everything in the home. I wonder how many school shooters would play copycat after that spectacle gets live-streamed on YouTube. My guess is not as many. The glory and notoriety factor would work in the opposite direction from what it is now, where these school shooters are sitting in prison watching TV news about themselves and browsing their sick fan mail.

The Demise of Unions

It is amusing to watch U.S. companies grovel before the Chinese Emperor. Gap, Marriott, and all of these huge multinationals obey Chinese censorship, even when selling products in the U.S. Interesting. All it takes is power.

Who cares what Americans think?

The working man used to have power, when he gathered together to form unions, but the smart folks brainwashed the masses, to make them think unions are bad. In the end, working people lost a great deal--benefits, job security, and salary. And that's not ever going to come back, because without unions, workers can be treated just any which way. If the American worker gets too uppity, then companies need merely to shift production to China. Who really cares what Americans think? What's important is what the Chinese Emperor thinks.

Now China owns both our politicians and the heads of companies and can get them to do whatever it wants them to do. Everyone is scared to death of incurring the wrath of China. The writing is on the world--U.S., has-been, washed-up relic of something that used to be. China, ascendant master of the Universe, with just a matter of time before it seizes Taiwan and other territorial ambitions. Is democracy doomed? Probably. If the best that the U.S. can do is put up a dolt like Trump, then the best is behind us. The U.S. got tired of smart (Obama), so settled for its opposite. Twenty-plus trillion in debt, with no end in sight to the national debt, and quite likely to default on Social Security and Medicare obligations, the U.S. has betrayed the working people. Who cares? Working people have no power.

So Trump Axed the Iran Deal

So what? A big ho-hum from the American public, reason being that Iran has been a bad actor all around the world, showing its behind all the time to neighboring countries and expressing its desire to destroy the United States and everyone living here. I think Trump is probably right that the time has come to nix the deal. The deal was worth a try. In theory, Iran could have accepted the olive branch and changed its ways, modernizing its economy and its system of government. Certainly, Iran would have been welcomed back into the community of nations, after establishing trust. Instead, Iran has chosen poverty, ignorance and backwardness. And that is what they will get. Time to stop hearing about Iran, it is just another horrible, backward country that no one would ever want to visit, where oppression, censorship, torture and misery are the norm.

As for nukes, if Iran goes nuclear, so do the other countries in the Middle East. It was only a matter of time anyway. The dam was sure to break. If North Korea has nukes, then Iran was sure to get them, one way or another, quite possibly from a North Korean submarine, sold in exchange for oil, food, and gold. Of course, the Iranians would pay just about any price for the weapon they so desire, billions, even. It is rather precious to suppose that a treaty and inspections can prevent a massive, well-funded intelligence apparatus from obtaining nuclear missile technology. I have no doubt Iran will eventually get nukes. Then catastrophe is simply a matter of time. The Iranians can always rationalize that Allah will reward the faithful after pressing the button. That's how the Islamic terrorists think, before they blow themselves up.

In truth, the most likely scenario is global nuclear war at some point in time. Everybody seems to want to jump on the nuke wagon. All these stupid boys have to play with dangerous toys. For the same reason, real boys play with firecrackers. Just the desire to make things go boom. Stupid, mindless leaders in North Korea, Iran. What bigger boom than a nuke?

The key is to prepare for the Apocalypse, to salt away knowledge and learning, that it not be forgotten, and, if desired, to try to survive what comes next--probably, nuclear winter, a mini-Ice Age, as Carl Sagan predicted. At any rate, most of the Earth's surface will probably become radioactive or otherwise uninhabitable for a time. It may even be that H. Sapiens will die out, and there will be no intelligent life left to blog about the state of the world. In which case, you know, too bad. I rather think a degenerative mutant species will dominate composed of individuals somewhat resistant to radiation.

As for me, I had my time in the Sun, and it was fun, for the most part. My hope is that I live out the remainder of my days before the end, but if I do see the end, I imagine there will be a certain satisfaction in knowing I'm among the last to know the civilized, modern world as it once was in all its glory. Luckiest of all will be the really old folks. They will have savored a complete measure of life before the catastrophe.

Republicans Have No Class

Honestly, some Republicans are acting like trash. McCain is dying, and they criticize his guest selection for his own funeral? Zero compassion. That explains Republican ideology 100%.

Platinum Can't Keep Its Trousers Up

As the internal combustion engine gradually gets phased out from worldwide usage in motor vehicles, platinum's trousers keep falling. I anticipate $600/oz., or about where we were in 2000. From there, it could decline further. After all, from an aesthetic point of view, it has nothing over silver.

College is Worthless

The four-year university track is another symptom of chronic stupidity. Perhaps some deserve crushing debt, being jobless and not having anything, while being highly educated at the same time. One can purchase book-learning, but one cannot purchase true merit, courage and work ethic.

NPR recently published a report on the shortage of trade workers in the United States. The truth is, people are lazy, and would rather go into debt drinking alcohol and popping pills for four years than actually get out there and work. Mom and Dad will buy the story, right? A four-year degree. Oh yeah, going to climb up that corporate ladder and be a big shot executive type, right? Yeah, sure. Just like all the other millions.

The best plan is to learn what is termed a "blue-collar" trade and go immediately to work, not after high school, but during--at the earliest age humanly possible. If, later, one is compelled by the desire for higher education for its own sake, then sure, that option will be readily available to one who has already paid for a house, set up a comfortable retirement and accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings. Blue collar workers are making $30 - $60 an hour, which dwarfs the salary of most college professors!

Education means nothing in today's world. It used to mean something, but people need to get their head out of the 1900s and get with the times. This is 2018. It is all about finding a niche in the global economic jigsaw puzzle. The fact is, skilled trades are what are needed. Not more entitled folk clutching worthless degrees. Get in line at the McDonald's and see whether you can impress the shift manager with your mad skills. "Would you like Fries with that?"

Young people should spend their teenage years working in fast-food jobs, like McDonald's. It would do them a world of good. In high school, if the pool of teachers is no better than what it was in my day, then bad habits are being learned, like vaping and nonsense with their phones and pointless, mindless obsessing over social media. Four hours an evening, working the grill at McDonald's, would demonstrate the value of money in a meaningful manner, conveyed to tired muscles.

My first job was at the age of 15, and I worked at a fast-food restaurant, grocery store and also did odd jobs around the neighborhood. I learned the value of money and to treat it with the utmost respect. If a dollar costs tired arms, legs and aching back, well then, that dollar is not something to be tossed around lightly, is it?

The problem with our university system is that it has not changed since the 1800s, and really, people need to get work much, much faster. College teaches charming little nuggets of knowledge, the bulk of which goes unused or gets forgotten. It is basically something people buy as a ticket into the middle class, except it doesn't work that well anymore as a ticket into the middle class, because everybody and their brother already has a degree, and degrees are handed out to pretty much anyone with a pulse, anyway. Grade inflation is more than a thing, it's a fact of life, and professors are scared to death to flunk a student, because the professors are making peanuts with peanutty benefits anyway. Most professors get no benefits and earn less than $40k a year; they are called "adjuncts." By the time a person is 22, a lot of good years are already behind them, years when youngsters were quick and agile with technology. So, what college does in effect is actually reduce the effectiveness of workers, by ensuring they are older before they start work, while conveying zero benefit.

Tyson

I suppose this can be classified under the "celebrities" category, although most people reading this particular post will have no idea who I am talking about or will think of the boxer. Well, to me, he is a celebrity, how about that? If one publishes a popular book that can be found in every major bookstore, then that meets a basic criterion.

In my studies, I have been reading books by my favorite writer of the moment, Donald Tyson, taking in not just what is written in black and white, but also some of what was concealed, not too artfully. To work on the public stage one must give of oneself, so he is blameless. Perhaps there is no choice, no "artful" alternative, when seeking to produce good art. His main objective was philosophical and scholarly, rather than material. He chose a subject which cannot be popular, not today and not even within his lifetime. Such a choice speaks of honesty, and I think that he is very honest and does not lie with self-awareness, although that does not mean he is always right. I have found an instance where he did lie, about a trivial matter, for a good and valid reason, but his ruse was transparent, speaking to his unfamiliarity with the practice. Indeed, the lie cast him in a positive light, because it showed that lying is foreign to his nature.

Little bits of the puzzle come together in my mind, things he alludes to, just touches upon in passing, achieving meaning. I wonder whether it is a kind of magic or mere deduction. Some might prefer the former, I prefer the latter explanation. One thing about Tyson, and he is by no means alone in this, he's a superstitious gentleman. I do not read him in isolation, but by my side are the many works of Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Robert Heinlein, these mighty scientific and literary giants, reproving me for my credulity and harshly criticizing the book in my hands.

Although my criticism could be equally applied to others in the genre, he is my favorite, the most coherent, intelligent, and, ironically enough, respectable, so I single him out, not of negativity but as a kind of compliment, because it is a compliment to receive any attention at all, positive or negative, in our crowded, busy world, where so many people do not even bother with books anymore. I think he granted too much to the spirits, in importance and relevance. One should hold one's own territory with fierce possessiveness. Credulity should be opened just a bit. Too much, and there is the risk of gullibility, of self-deception, or deception by others. Occam's razor and all that. So much of what feeble Man believes is bunkum, wishful thinking, vanity, narcissism, and much of what is written in the occult literature smacks of the grossest OCD and superstitious folly. There is little reason or rationale to offer the time of day. What mind of ancient time could contend with the mighty giants of today? Dee pales before the greatest of our scientists, the noble class that Tyson has no time for. There is a danger as well. By believing, by allowing spirits to consume one's thoughts, a certain power is granted to these entities, whether they be within, as Tyson maintains, or without. Ask first, should I grant belief? What is the objective? What is the cost? There is always a cost.

The King of Cups in his kingdom by the sea built a bridge over the waters of material poverty to the Kingdom of Pentacles, pursuing in his titles the latest fad, be it the Norse fetish or the Necronomicon. Now it is interesting that all his hard-earned knowledge is offered for peanuts. With little expense, one half his age acquires much of what he knows. Is this charity? No, it is the depressing reality of the book market, nothing more than that. Scholarly effort toward the mastery of magic proved to have been of little value in this material world. He does what he can, pursues the avenue that is open to his indisputable skill in words. Writing was not the only avenue to prosperity. His esoteric art assisted in certain acquisitions from time to time. I have two opinions. One, he offers his knowledge to strengthen the practice of magic, because he fears it has decayed in the modern world, and he seeks to reform certain popular errors, nailing his letter to the door like a kind of Martin Luther of the Occult. Two, he wants to be recognized for his attainment. The ego is strong in him, an overriding force in fact, as it must be for any writer in any time. To be recognized, admired, he finds empowering. Everyone wants to be loved, the King of Cups most of all, and in order to be loved, he must be just a bit more agile and industrious than the others that strive, so he advances in his studies, gathers more knowledge, acquires more experience, and seeks with his skill to put it to better use than they.

Like Crowley, he appears obsessed with the dark side. Lilith and the Necronomicon speak for themselves. Lightness and joy, he is not about, but I suppose that is rather inevitable, given our culture and the heavy influence of Christianity with its diametric view of the world. Lilith appears the most disturbing of his books. I do not know why he chose that subject, but perhaps it is due to his focus on the Qaballah, or however one wants to spell it. Why not focus on an angel instead? And why does he accept so much of the Bible literally? In many ways, he is no different than a fundamentalist Christian.

I wonder what his views are about gays. He is always harping on about sexual union between man and woman, and how powerful that is, and never once mentions any other possibilities save spirits, and pretty much quotes ancient homophobes without comment. The ancients speak for him, which is why he quotes them. There is a passage in Ritual Magic where he denigrates shamans as freaks, listing qualities such as epilepsy, homosexuality or mental instability. He would have got on well with the alt-right and may indeed be in bed with them with his Norse runes. Gays he consistently refers to as "homosexuals," citing the classic pretext that the precious word "gay" has been led astray over the course of history. Well, he does know his dictionary, doesn't he? Of course, old and obsolete meanings of words are more important than people's feelings, at least to a misanthrope. At length, Tyson's old time religion and antiquated notions seem threadbare. But that is just as well. No author must be placed upon a pedestal. All reveal their essential humanity before the intense light of scrutiny. Tyson gets sloppy with anything outside his zone of interest.

In "The New Magus," we get the unfiltered Tyson, spouting all his political beliefs, which seem confined to a narrow range of social issues. He seems a fairly typical conservative Catholic and all his opinions can be predicted based on the teachings of the Church, although he would prefer the Church of five hundred years ago to the one of today. That is, he is more conservative than today's conservatives. Also, I doubt he would accept the authority of Pope or priest, because he wants to be the same, and negotiate with the Deity on his own terms without any intermediary, hence his interest in magic. His conservative beliefs are convenient. He looks down on and disapproves of a host of people and practices in today's society (they fill him with "revulsion," he says), which serves to justify his innate misanthropy and dislike of other people. Perhaps if he had been nice to other people, a friend might have taken the time to proofread some of his books, which have a fair sprinkling of grammatical errors. Maybe the "homosexuals" in the publishing business did not take as much time working on Tyson's output, and who can blame them? Tyson likes the Kaballah, but hates the Jew. Basically anything that is an idea, he likes, but the people in the world, he has no use for, regards as sinners, inferior to him and possibly dangerous.

He rejects global warming because, you know, those silly scientists! What do they know, eh? The spirits say everything's O.K., and that's what's important. It is amusing to observe the verbal gymnastics Tyson engages in to explain various occult phenomena throughout the ages, hardly ever conceding an instance to pure human gullibility, delusion and mass hysteria. No, these factors are explained by spirits. I suppose everything, in the end, is explained by spirits. If global warming exists, it is due to spirits. If gays exist, it is because they are possessed or influenced by spirits. That's what causes a gay, apparently. Spirits said so.

Tyson may have been unduly influenced by the ancient and medieval texts he consumed. Spending so many nights in the company of enforcers of the Inquisition, wizards, charlatans, artificers, seers and alchemists from olden days, naturally they exert from beyond the grave an intellectual and emotional influence upon his thoughts, ideas and expressions, reinforcing certain habits and discouraging others. Some of the ones he fills his mind with have the capability to quite overwhelm whatever defenses he can muster.

Perhaps many folk do enter the odd, strange world of serious esoteric studies due to a sort of aversion to the modern, mainstream pathways and to modern people in general. From what I have observed of this author, I think he is not shy, but averse to social interaction unless it has a stated goal in harmony with his immediate needs. He is results-oriented, goal-driven, and would not go to a party just to be with people, because people fail to impress him, about ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Why else scorn the world of man in favor of the world of spirits? I cannot imagine a Tyson that likes people, with rare exceptions, but it is easy to imagine a Tyson with an eye for pelf. As I said before, bits of the puzzle come together. Aye, he would walk into a store, and if it were a big chain store, impersonal and corporate, he would not feel any compunction against helping himself to whatever items he happened to need, and it is within his power, or so he says, to escape detection--such a useful capability.

So one reads Tyson with a grain of salt, because he offers the other side, the Yin to one's Yang, and offers useful observations. I like the way he expresses himself, even if I don't always agree, and his books are worth keeping for their many ideas borne of practical experience. As with any source, one absorbs and improves upon, if one is wise. He encourages the same, and I think his books have the potential to be useful to many different practices. Everyone has their bias, and opinions are the mark of high intelligence. To be without any opinions would be boring, and there is no doubt Tyson wants to sell books and get some Pentacles moving his way. Time to monetize all those years sacrificed to esoteric studies. Magic is useless to get money in any but the most indirect ways. As RuPaul put it, you got to werk.

Silver Bullion

Confession: I love silver.

It's probably all psychological poppycock revolving around vampires-and-werewolves' bane, and magic, but nonetheless, the heart wants what it wants, and blood will out. You know that, don't you? Blood will out. That simply means, that the blood has a Will of its own, quite independent of the mind. Perhaps in ancient times, silver had more purchase, and spirits of old treasured it oh, so much!

At any rate none of the bullion nor the U.S. Mint's productions moved me, but the Silverbug line beguiled me. It is some kind of Reddit community I know nothing of, but whoever did it, for whatever reason (lucre), fired their arrow true.

The only bullion worth more than its weight is the Silverbug line. The rest seems pretentious or vulgar. And who exactly is Amy Brown, and why should I study her name on a coin for the rest of my life? The masters, DaVinci and the like, were content with tiny scribbles, or nothing. Amy Brown needs a quarter of the coin surface to establish her brand? Bah! And why are her fairies heroin chic?

So yes, silver is probably a poor investment, in general, but at least in the Silverbug line, it is more pleasing to the eye than stocks in Wells Fargo or whatever.

Desecrate the Saints

When I was young and foolish, I placed the basest rascals upon silver pedestals, superior to all other mortals, elevating them to an exalted God-like status in my stories. I remember writing, night after night, deluded obviously, with even self-awareness of being so due to my Guardian Angel, but defying the Angel and creating demigods, Saints clad in white, mimicking in my fevered reverie the romantic poets like Tennyson, Shelley, Byron. Mortal clay cannot withstand such elevation; laughter, derision and mockery are the inevitable result. In the first place, I was mistaken. Those I thought were High were Low. In the second place, they loved no one but themselves, and to worship such as they is to place a crown of thorns upon one's head. There is no percentage in making oblations to an ambivalent or indeed hostile Deity. This Truth, if accepted, solves half the world's problems, but remains unseen by most, and so they persist in self-destructive behaviors, the mindless infected of viral memes. We do see in this world as through a glass darkly.

The Law is so. Think first upon serving thy Self. Then think of others. Because they will not think of you.

Now I am old and wise, I think of the same godlings with derision and contempt, and only feel wonder and amusement that I ever saw anything at all in them. In cold blood, the only right blood, I evaluate their decrepit ancient mortal forms and savor Time's rue, a punishment far surpassing any I would have contemplated. Surely some infernal spirit played tricks with me, led me far astray, and it was only Grace that kept me from getting entangled with these low creatures.

I think that rock-n-roll music is the culprit, the gateway that leads many folk to look for the divine in base mortal clay, so convenient, right at hand and so wrong. I hear some songs today and think, oh, that is a spell, and to listen too closely is to be taken.

Death for Drugs

I read with interest the WaPo's analysis of Trump's desire to impose the death penalty for drug traffickers.

Meth traffickers (just to name one variety) certainly have zero concern for the well-being of humankind. I kept reminding myself, while watching "Breaking Bad," that there were no heroes. It is improper to root for Heisenberg. He was as bad a villain as any of the others in the show, and in reality, it was a show about villains. Really the only good guy was the D.E.A. agent, Hank, a sympathetic figure.

I think the death penalty does have a spiritual component to it, though, and there is something ancient and venerable about a life for a life. If a crime does not result in death, then perhaps, the death penalty should not be applied. I suppose in the case of drug trafficking, the outcome of the crime is not fully known, and death might be assumed.

However, the law should not be promiscuous in assigning death for crimes. I think Trump reflects a widespread dissatisfaction with the current system, in which we have a large population of prisoners that are hard to manage and expensive to manage. That is a complicated problem, but not every complicated problem has a simple solution, as Trump and his followers would prefer. My own solution to the problem is prevention--prevent people who commit crimes from ever being born. Eugenics. But, that is politically incorrect, condemned by both left and right, and associated with the most unpleasant regimes. I think that society is certainly moving, rapidly and inevitably, in the direction of eugenics, however, and anyone paying attention must agree. Eugenics will come about, not because of politics, law, or force, but because people simply want what is best for themselves and for their children. Self-interest will ensure that eugenics is practiced--voluntarily. And that will result, hopefully, in a reduction in crime.

NPR Comedy

I heard a great comedy show on NPR yesterday. They were asking listeners to contribute money to NPR. I never laughed so hard. I tried to think back to a single show I have heard from NPR that in any way seemed interesting, and I couldn't think of a one. The entire radio spectrum is just a wasteland now. NPR has been taken over by relentless, monotonous knee-jerk liberal talking heads, hostile to science, hostile to history, and suspicious of anything remotely educational. All they ever want to do is talk bad about the Republicans and talk about how terrible things are, all the time. NPR should pay me for ever tuning in. I tune in out of a faint hope that NPR will revert, at some point in the day, back to the sort of public radio that brought good shows, about science or history, shows like what the BBC has produced. The BBC is an example of high-quality radio programming.

Assumed Racism

The brouhaha over two black men arrested at Starbucks seems much ado over nothing. It is well-known, at least by anyone with experience in the world, that coffee shop owners are not in the business of providing a free meeting space or, for that matter, free restroom facilities to the public. No, they are in the business of selling coffee. No one, black or white, who sits at a table without buying anything is going to be welcome, ever. Of course, the two black men, instead of acknowledging this obvious fact, have opted, quite naturally, to maximize their media exposure and, hopefully, profiteering over the whole incident, which was entirely their own fault. Had one of them simply purchased a $2.85 coffee, none of this would have happened. The manager would have perceived them both as paying customers and ignored them. Instead, they opted to freeload off Starbucks and exploit it as a meeting place, without paying a nickel for anything. Of course, their self-inflicted problems are all the fault of bad, racist whitey. Close 8,000 stores nation-wide immediately to scold the baristas and teach them not to expect blacks to pay for anything. Yes, that's the way to handle it. This is exactly the type of thing, incidentally, that causes white folk to vote Republican in large majorities. Punish white people for being human, for expecting paying customers in their store.

Racists used to be a really bad word, back in the day. When whites are castigated as racists on the national media every day for quite ordinary and common-sense activities, the term "racist" loses its cachet. In today's society, "racist" simply means human. What we have learned from Starbucks is that expecting people to pay for services rendered, that is racist.

The A is Out

For the gay male community, what was true in 1979 remains true today. The A is out.

Not a lot of intelligence is required to deduce that the HIV virus is something one does not want to get. It is survivable, perhaps---with money and a great deal of effort and inconvenience, but it is highly undesirable, both for the individual and society. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost for every new HIV patient.

The main reason the gay community was and still remains a favorite target of the HIV virus is due to the ancient and traditional practice of anal sex. Therefore, any intelligent and self-respecting gay must refrain from anal intercourse, even with a condom, even with a supposedly monogamous partner. This seemed obvious to me back in the day and remains so. Abstinence is best for gays, regarding that one act, although everything else remains on the table. This is a sacrifice that must be made by any living gay today that wants to keep on living and pursue serious goals. On the one hand, it may seem a humiliating concession to the misguided fundamentalist Christians, but so what? Survival trumps meaningless pride. Science cannot be defied by the wise. The A will be back again when an HIV vaccine gets mass-produced.

There was a case in the U.K. recently involving a sociopath that intentionally infected other gay men, then taunted them with the fact afterward. This insect is by no means the first and will not be the last. He deserves death, swift and soon, but was instead sentenced to a lengthy imprisonment, owing to the U.K.'s ineffective legal system that coddles criminals and saddles their taxpayer with enormous costs, that murderers might pick their noses for many decades. At any rate, there are some men that will infect others intentionally, out of malice, because they are wicked spirits. There are some that will do so out of negligence, because they are fools. There are some that will do so due to pure blind chance, because no condom will ever be entirely effective in all cases, no matter what. For all of these reasons, the A is out.

Culture Has Declined

In the past, the music world bestowed upon posterity Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Now they give a Pulitzer to a rap crooner (not musician and not singer, nor artist). Culture has declined a great deal since the 1800s.

So-called musicians of today merit no more than tavern singers of yesteryear: a meal, a drink, a few coins here and there for a good performance, if the audience is well-to-do. Anything more is pelf. Their stuff isn't likely to still be played a hundred years from now. Their frequent protestations about deserving more money are preposterous. What they need to do is work harder, compose and edit their existing compositions to be better.

Popularity is based upon sexual urges and aspirations, that is, what folks want to become. Rap deals with stealing, rape, and murder, so one can conclude what the listening public wants to do based upon that.

Rather than give a Pulitzer to a rap crooner, the award should be given to a teacher. Teachers work really hard and have to deal with all kinds of criticism, disrespect and long-term liabilities in today's society, one of which involves being underpaid for the work they perform.

Times Past

Used to be, the arrogant, stupid leaders of the world could throw a hissy fit, launch a bloody war, off a couple million folks, and call it a day. Now, all of a sudden, a world war results in Nuclear and/or Biological and/or Chemical Apocalypse. Are we to presume, that following the year 1945 and the advent of the Nuclear Age, H. Sapiens has evolved morally and ethically to the point where our leaders will abstain from world war and bloody conquest?

Not at all, not in the slightest; our leaders are just as stupid as before, if not more so, but their weapons are awesome and far beyond anything their predecessors ever dreamed of.

The only possible conclusion is that history will repeat itself, and world war must come again, and in fact, is long overdue. Putin wants war. He thinks he and a small group of cronies can survive the Apocalypse by hiding out somewhere far away from civilization, in the mountains of Siberia, deep underground, with plenty of food and medical supplies stockpiled, and even a generator or nuclear reactor to provide electricity. He figures he can repopulate the world in his own image: ugly, evil, and stupid; something along the lines of what Sauron wanted. Unfortunately for everybody else, his plan is just within the realm of possibility.

Our intelligence apparatus, instead of wasting time on the ragheads of the Middle East, should be focused with laser-like precision upon Russia and China, the real threats, as opposed to the ever-reproducing ragheads, who should be contained, not by American forces, but by other ragheads. Resources spent upon policing ragheads are resources wasted. They will never amount to anything and will always destroy whatever is built in their region of the world, because that is in their nature. It is pointless to expect the raghead to do anything other than have a strong man operating under the cloak of Islamic legitimacy. The past several decades consisted of opportunities and resources wasted by the U.S. foreign policy due to the false expectation that the Middle East would have its share of Thomas Paine, George Washington or Benjamin Franklin. Fat chance of that. All they have is a bunch of lunatics with scimitars, grenade-launchers and automatic assault rifles.

Alexander is laughing at us. "Did you learn nothing from my war against Darius?"

But of course, the Americans do not read history.

Occam's Razor

In the recent Russian nerve agent assassination, Occam's Razor indicates Russia is culpable. The nerve agent was manufactured by Russia and is only known to exist in Russia. Putin is a liar; to lie is nothing to him. Putin controls Russia as a de facto dictator. Putin wanted the ex-spy living in London to die of spectacular and macabre symptoms. Thus, the simplest, and therefore most likely, scenario is Putin ordered the poisoning. Any other theory relies upon further complexity and far-fetched possibilities. All the lies being generated by the Russian state may be ignored without further consideration. Russia can be assumed guilty, under any circumstances, until proven innocent, because Russia under Putin is evil.

Putin is playing with fire, skirting along the edge of war. The fool may miscalculate at some point, to his peril. It is unfortunate that the rest of us have to live on the same planet as Putin. He is in a similar category as Hitler and Stalin, his two heroes. That such a fool is in charge of a nuclear-armed state is a big reason to be pessimistic about the future of H. Sapiens. The odds that H. Sapiens will survive the nuclear age are about one in a million.

Hand-wringing over Tariffs

It is amusing to watch the media's gyrations against tariffs and the looming trade wars. For years, the elite sat back and partied their butts off, enjoying getting rich off the backs of unemployed Americans. Meanwhile, working people in the U.S. suffered. Factories shuttered, towns got destroyed, whole cities like Detroit turned into hellholes, where homeowners were lucky to get any amount at all for their homes. Working people turned to the "gig economy," earning minimum wage or less with no benefits at all. The elite didn't care. They talked about "free trade," "the global economy," and gushed over the stock market's performance. Yeah, who cares about the working people? They can die, right? They should stop having babies, eh?

When I read that tariffs don't work and trade wars are all bad, I just don't believe it. I think that is a lie. The U.S. imports far more than it exports. We still have the biggest economy. So, any country having a trade war against us is going to lose financially. And, in the end, the U.S. does not need any international trade at all. We are an entirely self-sufficient country, with enough natural resources and people to produce whatever we need. Stop all trade, is a good idea, for several generations, and then automatically we will be a strong competitor again, producing anything and everything. Meanwhile, China can stockpile all the junk it produces and build a mountain with it and name it after their dictator.

Funny how otherwise liberal-minded folks cozy up to foreign dictators and think everything is just hunky-dory that we are letting them have so much wealth, while so many of our own people are just getting by working for Uber.

Asylum

The only folks that should seek asylum in the U.S. are those on our border. Canadians and Mexicans, logically, should have the right to seek asylum in the U.S. Maybe those in the Carribean, too, and that would include Cuba. Anyone else is just shopping for a better financial life. People in the Middle East need to look at the neighboring countries around that region. There is no need to fly all the way over to North America. That is a nonsensical stretch of logic and abuse of the asylum system. Anyone that comes here from outside of North America needs to be sent back to wherever they came from, if their only claim is based on asylum. Other countries are better prepared to assume immigrants. The U.S. suffers from unemployment and underemployment. When so many of our people do not even have basic medical insurance or retirement plans, then this is no time to take in more people.

Opinion Repository

This blog serves as a safe repository for my opinions. No one really wants to hear another person's opinions, so the best place for opinions is in a little-noticed blog that nobody reads (except bots). Loudmouths that share their opinions with others unasked aren't terribly popular. No one gives a crap about what other people think.

Now, I think that social media is stupid, by its very design. Place your personal opinions and personal information on a public venue where anybody can scan them to learn all about you. In the first place, people underestimate the number of hostile eyes. They don't realize, people have bad intentions for gathering information. By giving away information, one serves one's enemies.

The beginnings of social media stretch back far into the days of BBSes. Even back in the BBS world, there was danger, but now the danger is ten-fold, because social media encompasses the globe, and everyone is in on it. I have known people to get in trouble on their job because of what they wrote on social media. It is better not to write anything that is attached to a real name. Everything you write or post goes directly to your current and future employers, friends, lovers, foes, co-workers, and so on. It never ends.

Censorship on Facebook and Twitter is a gift. Everyone should be censored. No one should post anything. That is the perfect ideal. Anytime someone is censored, they should write a thank-you note to the censor and mail a check for a hundred dollars. The censor is your friend.

I've never understood why they call it social media. People are sitting at home, alone, in front of a computer screen. How social is that?

National Public Radio

Every time I turn on NPR, I hear whining. I have gotten so that I can't stand NPR. All it ever talks about is politics, the latest Trump brouhaha or how awful white people are. Where is the science, history and culture? I thought NPR was supposed to be educational. Instead, it is just the liberal propaganda machine. And it doesn't work very well at the intended purpose. If racism is such a huge problem that it deserves all the NPR coverage, even in 2018, then it will never get fixed. I think the constant pointing of the finger at whitey is the main problem. The only real racism we see today is against white people. White people are presumed guilty, by mere fact of being white, regardless of their political beliefs, and never permitted to demonstrate their innocence, under any circumstances. Meanwhile, take a look at what has happened over in Zimbabwe, for an example of a black-majority country.

I think that NPR should focus more on science and education, because there is a real hunger and need for that. Just pressing the enrage button constantly makes people miserable and dumbs people down. I wonder what good NPR is, if that is all it ever does.

Amazon

Look at what people do, not what they say. For years, Amazon's CEO has been hyped as this great liberal figure, but in reality, Amazon treats its employees like dogs, skimping on air conditioning, salaries and benefits, and underpays the U.S. Postal Service, and gets away without paying taxes in most sales. Admittedly, the U.S. Postal Service is run by fools, all of whom should be fired for undercharging Amazon all these years. The price to deliver packages needs to be increased not today, but ten years ago. Bribery is the most likely reason the USPS has given Amazon such a princely gift, worth billions. Someone in management is being paid off. As for Amazon not paying sales tax, it should be charged, not just for future sales, but for all the past sales that it failed to charge sales tax. That would solve the financial problems of most local and state governments. Perhaps Amazon's corporate management can sacrifice their personal home and wealth to pay off the back taxes.

So this is the real reason that Amazon's owner is hyped as this great big genius. In reality, he is just a selfish, cruel tycoon very willing to take advantage of anyone and everyone. He is farther right-wing than Trump. Trump is a liberal next to Amazon. The only reason Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post was to use it as a tool against Trump, because he feared that the U.S. government might act against Amazon's selfish interests. Well, it should. Congress should pass legislation to make sure that the Postal Service is paid, not just what it needs for current costs, but to ensure that Postal employees are getting the health benefits and retirement savings that they need long-term. Postal employees are temps with no benefits, work long hours and suffer long-term hearing loss from their dilapidated jeeps. Congress should see to it that Amazon pays its fair share to local and state governments, who have been short-changed for years. How is the government supposed to get funding, when people are buying everything from Amazon and not paying a dime of sales tax?

Trump was Right about Africa

Africa is composed of s-hole countries. Are there exceptions? No, can't name a one. The latest news from the one supposedly advanced country, Kenya, is that their high court ruled they won't conduct forced anal exams of gay men. Wow, big progress. Just a bunch of savages in Africa. The amount of immigration from the blighted continent should be zero or negative. The only thing Africa contributes to the world is a hand. A hand out, that is, and always asking for more.

But I'm sure it's all the fault of whitey.

Crapple Claims It Is Made in America

Crapple's CEO claims Crapple builds its junk in the U.S. If that were even half-true, then the Iphones would say "Made in U.S.A.," but they don't, they say "Made in China." A tariff on Crapple imports would be the right approach to making Crapple change its ways. It is a Chinese company, not an American one, and should be treated as Chinese. If a company does not hire American workers, then it is not an American company, and its products are imports.

Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke is such a good writer of science fiction. His prose is clean and concise, and he has proven prescient. It is a symptom of cultural decadence that our world leaders do not read from and quote him.

Trump is entirely unacquainted with either science or scientific thought, and to be fair, the same applies to many world leaders, who view science merely as a tool for military weapons or economic gain, if they think of it at all. Elevating the bullies of the world into positions of power has had a deleterious effect upon our future prospects. Putin, Trump, Xi--and then the nitwits of Iran, North Korea, and really most all of Africa. I think there is a great case to be made for pessimism over the future of H. Sapiens, given that many of these leaders have vast arsenals, including biological, chemical and/or nuclear weapons at their disposal. Probability will run its course, and there is a distinct probability one of these nitwits will miscalculate at some point in time and set off a most regrettable chain of events.

Therefore, what is an ethical person with sense to do? Enjoy life, I suppose, and try not to dwell upon the coming end of humanity, and try to secure little pockets of knowledge and culture into safe havens that can endure, perhaps, the coming nuclear/biological/chemical Apocalypse, when vast numbers of the human race will perish in suffering and death, slowly or mercifully quickly. It is well to stockpile cans of pinto beans and dried milk, as I know many folks that do, but also stockpile books and data, because much learning could be lost when the Internet is no more, and libraries have burned to the ground.

Give a care, not just to the immediate needs of current life, the avoidance of hunger and thirst and so forth, but also to the knowledge-base of the human race. Imagine having to discover all of our science and technology all over again. Imagine being without all our fiction and prose. We could well be sent back to the Stone Age, depending on the severity of the Apocalypse. It would be well to have many treasure-chests hidden around in various locations with a wealth of knowledge.

Perhaps if all is lost, and most all our species perish, there is yet hope, if not a hundred years after, then a thousand, or even ten thousand, or a hundred thousand. I imagine a secure and timeless repository like the Pyramids of Egypt, something that can endure, in a desert perhaps, or some remote place far from the beaten path, hidden from thieves and wild animals, safe even from rot and decay, microbes, humidity and solar radiation. It is a technical problem that demands a technical solution. It would be worthwhile to invest a million dollars in securing hidey-holes around the globe for future wanderers to uncover, that our civilization might be reborn in a future age, after the radiation has died down and open spaces are habitable by human beings again.

In Education, Bigger Isn't Better

One reason there are so many school shootings is schools are huge mini-cities nowadays. The only reason is people are cheap as hell and want to maximize their investment in education by herding kids into the biggest possible cattle farm. The kids don't know each other anymore and don't much care about each other, either. Every other kid is just another zombie in a video game shoot-em-up. It is a situation that was well-designed to create mass-murderers. When folks know one another by name and know what is really going on in a small school environment, that is when you nip these problems in the bud, rather than letting them fester.

Never Using Piriform's CCleaner Again

Ccleaner installed Avast Anti-Virus on a user's machine during a fresh install, even though I opted out. That resulted in a scenario where the user had two active anti-virus programs. What ensued was a 30 minute ordeal of trying to get Avast off the machine. A reboot was required, naturally. I will never use Ccleaner again and plan to blacklist it to prevent anyone from using it at all, under any circumstances. Ccleaner is malware. At one time last year, Ccleaner actually had a virus payload inserted into its code, by accident, or so Piriform claimed at the time. I rather think that Piriform has grown jealous of the wealth of other software companies and is doing anything at all to increase revenue, whether ethical (or legal) or not. The equation is simple. Ccleaner = Virus.

A good substitute for CCleaner is Bleachbit.

The Eternally Ungrateful E.U.

If the E.U. really retaliates on the steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump enacted for the sake of national security, we should begin preparations to withdraw all troops and military material from Europe. One hour after that announcement, any retaliation would disappear. Indeed, Europe should be paying for its own defense. American taxpayers have subsidized Europe's defense for decades, allowing Europeans to have a social safety net far better than U.S. citizens. Trump would be justified in exacting tribute from every European country, to the tune of many hundreds of billions per year. It is not right that the U.S. taxpayer pays only so that the European gets six weeks of vacation per year, free medical care from cradle to grave, early retirement and free education.

What Europe needs is another world war on their soil, to teach their people gratitude. They seem to have forgotten who pulled their delicate bits out of the fire.

European countries are arming fascist Turkey right now to crush the democratic, LGBT-friendly Kurds in Syria. European nations just don't have any scruples; they will do anything at all for money. They don't care that the U.S. protects them against annihilation, unless we start sounding serious about withdrawing that protection. That would be a wake-up call for the stupid Europeans, whose knee-jerk anti-Americanism is prevalent all throughout their public discourse. It is fashionable in Europe to dismiss the very people who protect Europe from annihilation. "Fat, stupid Americans," eh? Yeah, we're stupid, because we have been paying for their defense all these years, getting zero in return. And the U.S. has about the worst medical system in the entire developed world.

Guns Vs. Pot

It is amusing to contrast the police response to an active shooter situation at a Florida high school with that of a pot dealer. Tipped off that there's a large stash of pot, eager swarms of police bust in the doors of the pot dealer, looking to score cash, guns, and drugs, some of which can be siphoned off, but at any rate all opportunities for promotion, because the police department gets to keep the cash. Now, active shooter on a school campus? What's the hurry! We could get hurt, yo? No money in that, either.

It is a symptom of the collective schizophrenia in the world today that marijuana is perceived as a crime that must be answered with deadly force. China, Singapore and Malaysia, among other barbaric outposts, are known to execute those that traffic in large quantities of marijuana. For this reason, among others, an alien intelligence evaluating H. Sapiens would be wise to conclude that our species is not worthy of rescue, of enlightenment and education; that we should be left to our own devices, which means, to self-destruct in our own toxins and nuclear weapons. Rather than continue to contact us, they withdraw, leaving no trace.

Oh, No! A Professor Speaks Out

I read about Prof. Amy Wax's disparaging of black college students. In essence, she simply said that black students underperformed academically, but then she went on to point the finger at presumed causes--not genetic or racial, mind you, but cultural--rap music culture and the like. I think it is important to listen to what people are saying before jumping to conclusions about their ideology. Professors tend to carve out idiosyncratic world-views that borrow a bit of this, a bit of that, here and there. It is seldom correct to pigeon-hole them. But people are obsessed with labels, because they hate thinking.

There probably is merit to her observation, which was not denied, regarding underperformance among black students. Who benefits by her pointing out this discrepancy? Actually, if I were a black student, her words would serve as a spur to prove her wrong. Indeed, utter the inconvenient truth, say that the Emperor has no clothes. Truth is refreshing, liberating, and once truth is known, people can act based upon what they know. Prof. Amy Wax could potentially be the best friend of a high-performing black student. What she is demanding is better performance. She has not said that black students are incapable or biologically inferior at all, and they are not. She has said that rap music culture is brain-dead, and it is. Rap music prepares a mind to commit violent crime. Period. This is irrefutable, and there are tons of blacks in prison today, producing nothing, contributing nothing. A black student listening to Tchaikovsky, reading books, writing poetry, playing chess, and studying diligently--well, that would be a different kettle of fish, wouldn't it? I think that Prof. Amy Wax would be taken off her guard and might even write a recommendation letter for such a student.

The knee-jerk reactions of people in academia are insipid and do cause a reaction from the right. In the end, there is noise and little light.

Now, someone may say, but Igor! What if you were a college student that had to deal with a homophobic professor! Wouldn't you want him / her fired? Well, that did happen to me. I took two courses in microbiology from a very politically active, Republican (of course), right-wing, rabidly homophobic professor who equated homosexuals with pedophiles. She occasionally used the classroom as a platform for her views, although she was limited in this regard, because we had so much microbiology to cover that we had little time for extras. She had to contend with hundreds of pages, and it was a terrible confinement upon her clear and powerful desire to drone on and on about socially conservative politics, against the Godless liberals that wanted to normalize sexual perversion. Nevertheless, I liked microbiology and found her explanations of it tolerable and performed at the top of her class. I even gave a presentation on a disease that was quite well-received by the class and her comments and A+ led me to conclude she liked me. It is often thus with politics; people do not relate the solid and visible of everyday life with the invisible abstract, the boogieman homosexual that she conjures up in her fevered thinking about politics and public policy. Thus people persist in misguided views and generalizations based upon little but jokes, fancies or rumors they heard long ago.

It is possible to "prove 'em wrong" and there is a satisfaction in doing so. Yes, people begin by believing such and such, but they are mistaken, and if you are right, you must demonstrate to them, by your actions, they are wrong, and must revise their opinions, that is, if they want to be true. Not everyone wants to be true, but a great many people do, and upon descending into their world with clear and tangible evidence of a contradiction, one delivers a challenge to change.

Death Dream

I dreamed I was twenty again and driving my father into a deserted parking lot behind a closed shopping mall late at night. There was something work-related I had to check, a malfunctioning outdoor gadget of some kind, and I parked the car beside it. Another car pulled up. I shined my flashlight at the occupants. They got out, two men, armed with pistols. I was face down on the ground, begging for my life, and one thug smiled at my pleas, then put a bullet through my brain, which ended my life. What happened to my father, I don't know, but likely the motive of the attack was robbery, and the callous killers could brook no witnesses. It is deplorable, the tiny amounts of lucre that people are willing to kill other human beings for. It is not like I drive an expensive car or wear gold jewelry.

Upon awakening, I observed that the dream bore little relation to my current life, as I have no mortal enemies and have not been a victim of violent crime, at least recently. Perhaps I was visited by a traveling spirit that had seen the scenario. Or perhaps it was a memory of a television show. Television displays murders often. I guess it gets peoples' attention.

Of course, I will die in a certain amount of years, and that fate is unstoppable, even if I manage to elude the bullets that zip by in mad, modern-day America, where every hothead ends his life while taking out ten or twenty others.

So, what of it? I will not have any worries after I die. I will rejoin the earth, become one with it, and give up this individual identity known as self. The constituent atoms will reform into something else. And eventually, the earth will die, along with the universe itself.

I do not believe the self is so precious that it must be preserved forever. I believe the self is disposable rather, a base thing, prone to selfishness, driven by needs such as hunger and greed, and not really that fine. The dissolution of self could almost be regarded as a liberation of sorts. We cling to self and to life out of nostalgia and familiarity. One comes to realize that what we think of as the uniqueness of our self is actually replicated in many other people, who have the same drives, the same motives and desires. We are not really that different in the end. And the world keeps on spinning even after we are gone.

Pelosi on RuPaul

I have always admired Nancy Pelosi. That she is on one of my favorite shows, RuPaul, is something for me to look forward to. Pelosi functions as the conscience of a Congress that has problems mustering up compassion for the working poor, the sick and the vulnerable among our population. Congress spends too much time figuring out ways to help the rich get richer without any effort The rich must be awfully stupid, if they need so much help from the Federal Government to get even more billions on top of what they already have.

Checked Out Wal-Mart's Web Site...

...And, it looks like old WallyMart hasn't learned zip in ten years about how to design the web site. The whole thing looks like it is designed to sell paper cups and toilet paper, nothing more than that. It may be that they are just not intelligent enough to understand the digital age. Too many fossils up at the top of that company.

We Probably Do Need a Trade War

Trump's certainly correct that a trade war would be in U.S. interests, until the rest of the world stops exacting high taxes and barriers to American products. The reason so many of our people remain unemployed or underemployed in poorly paid, part-time jobs with few or no benefits and no retirement plans is that the rest of the world has been crucifying the U.S. on trade. Free trade is a great concept, but only the U.S. has been playing by the rules. The other countries block American goods at the border. This is why cities like Detroit are crime-ridden hell-holes. China is probably the worst offender, but the other countries certainly have problems as well. I think that Europe needs to start doing some soul-searching and stop raping the U.S. on trade. The U.S. can't foot the bill for everything for ever. Just because Europe is completely to blame for WW2, and the U.S. pulled their feet out of the fire and nursed their economies back to health, doesn't mean the U.S. is now the permanent nurse of Europe and has to give, give, give and never take. Trade needs to be equal, or else there does not need to be trade at all. I am sure that Europe has plenty of farmland to grow food, or else they can turn to Russia and ask for food, and maybe while they're at it, negotiate with the Russians as to surrender terms, and how many of their citizens need to be transported to slave camps in Siberia. Europe needs to think first of all about what they can do for the U.S., rather than imaginary obligations that the U.S. has to their ungrateful, bickering, backstabbing and freeloading societies. If the E.U. can't even keep calm, cool U.K. in the fold, it is not worth the paper their treaty is printed on.

AMD

AMD may be a cpu worth considering for Windows gamers, but no one else. AMD doesn't care about Linux. Never has, never will. So for me, it's Intel all the way. And the same goes for the hundreds of folks I buy PC's for. I don't even look at or consider AMD products, ever, under any circumstances, and for all of us, INTEL is worth a sizable premium. In fact, there is only INTEL, and they can charge whatever they want.

Republicans and Corruption Go Hand in Glove

It is amusing that Ben Carson, respectable Black Republican, talks against welfare for the poor, but greedily grasps welfare for himself. He is not O.K. with a $5000 budget to redecorate his office. He needs $31,000, or an ordinary person's entire salary, in order to buy a fancy gold-plated chair, diamond-studded desk and so on. What a hypocrite, grabbing bread from a child's mouth to sell it off so that he can put a feather in his cap. Stealing from the government is the Republican way. They talk against welfare for working people, then they take welfare for themselves.

It seems every member of Trump's team has indulged themselves, enriching themselves and their families at the public expense. Indeed, why work? Just mouth a bunch of lies and make people believe, and you can make a killing just hanging on the coattails of the Liar-in-Chief. I imagine Ben Carson finds taking handouts from the government easier than difficult, risky neurology ever was. In fact, the same motive is behind all of Trump's henchmen.

What we need is a good Democrat to go in and drain the swamp! Sell off the gold-plated chairs and expose all the excesses and theft of the entire Trump Administration.

Is the U.S. Doomed?

The United States will one day be one great big desert, with slave camps for all its people, who will be used as body bags by foreign conquerors--fresh organs, blood, tissue. One reason is other countries take science seriously, like Japan with its new cure for flu. How come the U.S. did not come up with that miracle drug? What's the reason?

All that Trump wants to do is buy bullets and bombs to blast the ragheads in the Middle East from afar, just like every Republican since 1988. Other than that, no medical care for the poor, no science, no space exploration, no infrastructure. The U.S. decays from within, while the Republicans have a jolly good time running up the deficit in a race to see how fast they can bankrupt Treasury and deplete our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The number of young people interested in pursuing a career in actual hard science (not just computers and nursing) is abysmal and paints a picture of the slave camps that will stretch from California to Florida. Sex slaves and organ bags are what our defeated people will become, to whichever nation or group of nations takes science seriously enough to gather up the secrets to future tech. China has already stolen a great portion of our technology, due to our leaders being asleep at the switch. No one in Washington, D.C. cares about or even really understands cybersecurity or science. All they care about is bombing ragheads, looking tough, standing tall, and partying all night in their drunken reveries of arrogance over their temporary power in this world. They will be forgotten, just like the old Weimar politicians.

Time is not on our side. I wish the Republicans would think for one second how many Ph.D.'s are graduating in China as opposed to the U.S., and how many new discoveries are being made, not in the U.S., but in competitor nations. It is not just because of resolve or toughness that the U.S. won WW2. It is because of what? Because of science. Without science, there would have been no radar, no breaking Enigma, no advanced bombers, no nukes.

Instead of a stupid border wall, which is a great big admission of defeat in the failed war on drugs, the Chinese are building dams, internet, highways, universities. Instead of invading worthless cesspool countries, the Chinese are investing in factories.

Who is going to rule the world in the future? It won't be the U.S., twenty trillion in debt. Our economy collapses the moment investors wake up and realize the debt is never going to be repaid. Inflation will turn into hyperinflation, and no one will have any retirement savings.

American Steel

Damn straight that steel should be produced in America. 100% of all steel used in the U.S. should be produced in the U.S., because steel is a vital national security resource, as is aluminum and many other metals. It is completely ridiculous that our leaders were asleep at the switch and let all these foreigners dump steel on the market. If there is ever a war or international disaster, then there are going to be a lot of problems as we will not the material necessary for the war machine, let alone domestic needs. And there is no safety margin in letting Japan supply our steel over China. An ocean, a language, a culture, and a vast distance separates the U.S. from Japan. It is entirely possible China could take over Japan in the foreseeable future. I can see letting Canada supply our steel, but not any other country. Canada is practically an auxiliary of the U.S., anyway. Canada would be an American state, except that Canada is better than the U.S. in so many ways, mainly in knowing not to get too involved in foreign wars.

The Mental Illness Defense

I'm not sympathetic to those murderers pleading mental defectiveness to escape the death penalty. They should be hung from the neck just the same, regardless if they suffer from every mental defect in the book. Although their brain may not understand the rope, their neck will understand perfectly and behave according to the laws of physics. This business where a murderer pleads insanity, then gets the taxpayer to foot his bill the rest of his days, is complete nonsense.

If there are some who want to pay to keep a murderer alive, then they should donate the cash, after compensating the victims' families a million dollars per life, and compensating the state for all legal costs, police overtime, etc. Perhaps some of these people that want to keep the insane murderers alive can sell their homes, cars, clothes, kidneys, fingers, eye-balls etc. to raise money. It is not the responsibility of the taxpayer to keep an insane murderer alive for the next hundred years. It is a violation of my rights as a human being to compel me to finance a murderer's food, shelter, and so on. The amount I am willing to pay for that sort of thing is zero.

Lenovo

Lenovo doesn't want to make money. Lenovo is in the business of losing money. I've seldom seen a company so determined to avoid acquiring new customers. The salesmen don't seem very interested in making sales. You're lucky if you can get one to call you back. Of course, their computers aren't any better than anyone else's, either. The Lenovo desktop has zero room for upgrades. Want to add another hard drive? Forget it. Open up the Lenovo desktop, and you are in Nightmare Alley. There's no space for anything, and working in it is a nightmare. But the worst part about Lenovo is that it is based in China, so their hardware probably comes with built-in hacks to let the Chinese spies in.

And, word to the wise: the defect rate of Lenovo products is high, while their technical support is extremely poor. Their tech support staff speak poor English, the kind of English that a third-grader in China learning English as a second language might use, and frequently Lenovo staff will return a product without performing any repairs at all. The amount of time Lenovo requires to perform a simple repair is 2-3 months; a complex repair is completely impossible. Those who invest in Lenovo as a company or as a customer have a desire to lose money and lose time. They would be better off playing video games, because at least they would have fun that way.

The Opioid Epidemic

I hate what opium and meth do to our people. Hate it. Rational human beings, good folk, transform into Cavemen, Cavewomen. Hurt themselves and others. Ruin their lives. Ruin others' lives. I sympathize with the desire to wall off Mexico, with its vast criminal drug network. Mexico has had a lot of time to reform itself and become like America, but is left behind in progress, because its people are stupid, in general. What else is to blame for drug lords running rampant in Mexico? What is to blame for the high level of corruption and crime in Mexico? Is everything the Yankee's fault? Mexicans should look in the mirror, and look at their kin and look at their neighbors, before pointing the finger North.

We should legalize marijuana from coast to coast and let that be our people's drug, because it has little harm, even next to alcohol. The resources devoted to locking up pot users are resources wasted. Pot is tea. No big deal. The biggest downside is potheads get thick-headed and lazy, but they aren't addicts and can quit tomorrow, with a bit o' willpower.

The other drugs, should they be legalized too? Yes and no. I would support legalizing methadone and other mild things to help addicts wean themselves off the hard stuff. I would not support the legalization and availability of meth, heroin or crack, because people are stupid, and they will take poisons until they die, and unfortunately, addicts have a nasty tendency to wreak ruin on those around them.

The Stock Market

I'm bailing.

The question is when, not if.

I'm quite satisfied with my gains thus far. Thanks, Obama. Oh, and a tip of the hat to Trump for not following Republican tradition in launching a new war. Yet.

True, bond interest rates are abysmal, insufficient to keep up with any rational projection of future inflation.

But, so what? Interest rates should catch up in time. Nice to have a hefty chunk of change in the bond market, dry powder for future use in the event of a stock market meltdown.

Right now, foreign stocks look interesting to me. I like the look of Asia. A war with North Korea just isn't something the U.S. really wants to do at this time, because our trade with Asia is such a huge part of the U.S. economy. Also, North Korea is nothing but a hundred-pound baby, with needs, not anything useful to offer the world. Bombing them just sort of reinforces their already existing bunker mentality, and they don't have anything worth bombing. If peace prevails, then Asia stands to gain, because China is highly rational when it comes to economic and trade policy.

Intel Slipped on its own Banana Peel

Intel's handling of the Meltdown/Spectre has made a quagmire, a nightmare for I.T., and I think many businesses around the world will be more receptive to AMD chips in the future. My biggest reason to avoid AMD is its abysmal performance in Linux, and the strange problems with its Catalyst video driver in Windows. I have not even looked at AMD in years and have no notion of what Catalyst looks like now, but perhaps I will be willing to try AMD again in 2030 or so. I figure by that time, AMD will have beta-tested Catalyst sufficiently. It was a horrible mess, worse than Meltdown/Spectre, ten years ago, and one thing I know about AMD is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

How to Handle Afghanistan

This business where the U.S. just bankrolls a corrupt Afghan government into perpetuity is foolishness. The way to handle Afghanistan is to let the Taliban take over--after we have dumped all nuclear, biological and heavy metal waste on every acre in Afghanistan. Let the Taliban spend its energies on the environmental clean-up and enjoy the fun experiments in three-headed sheep. Do the same over in Pakistan, to impress upon that country's leadership the downside to betraying the U.S. after taking our money. What the Muslims need to focus on, instead of building bombs, is their three-headed sheep, poison in their water and air, and a host of communicable diseases. Perhaps the islamabads of the world can start cracking a book once in a blue moon, instead of a grenade pin. They need to learn about science and medicine instead of chanting the Koran every day. Maybe after a couple of generations, there will actually be some science going on in those worthless barbarian regions.

A bonus to dumping waste in Afghanistan is that the opium crop would have a built-in deterrent for all the drug users. They could get a hefty dose of radiation with every injection. That would cut down on the drug epidemic.

I don't understand why the U.S. has not recovered reparations from all the mines in Afghanistan. We should be rolling in gems and rare and precious metals now. Every taxpayer should receive a box filled with treasure captured from Afghanistan. Instead, all we receive is a big tax bill, and the tax money has gone over to help the ragheads, who hate us anyway. Worthless waste of money, getting involved in raghead nonsense. All they live for is martyrdom, they have no life and no culture.

500% Tax on Turkish Imports

Anything imported from Turkey should be taxed 500%. I think that Turkey has, for a long time, allied itself against the United States in every possible way, and the only thing that Turkey dreams about is killing Christians and sowing the seeds of terrorism throughout the Christian world. It's another Muslim-fanatic society, dedicated to genocide against non-Muslims. The markets of the West should be closed to Turkish goods, or else taxed at such a rate as to make them out of reach. Turkey's natural partner should be Iran, a similar society. The two of them can possibly merge one day to become Greater Persia. The only things they need to teach their children is Islam and how to make bombs. That is about the summit of the Muslim mind's imagination. Allah and bombs. Turkey needs to make reparations to one of the ethnic groups they practiced genocide against already, and then stop committing genocide against their own people, the Kurds.

Fever

Influenza does make me wiser, in the ancient meaning of the word. That may be its only benefit. Nice that there is a positive mingled in with so many negatives. To take advantage, it is necessary to sleep long and undisturbed. The more bed rest, the better. Flu is wasted on those who play video games or sit at the computer all day.

Religion in Iran

Religion in Iran consists of the systematic serial rape of the people for generations. Their deity, which it is convenient to name Allah in contemporary times, is like the demon-god, Tsathoggua, that finds ways to insert itself into everyone over there and give them a jolly good working over. Tsathoggua's vast priest-class reigns like princes in that closed society and enforces piety and religiosity with the whip and the rifle. They steal, rape, plunder, torture, kill, all in the name of their demon-god, yet with every outward appearance of piety. A more pious nation than Iran would be hard to find, yet it is steeped in evil and corruption, because it worships, not goodness and light, but evil and darkness. Interesting that Rohani's recent budget included a 20% increase for the Supreme Leader's enforcers embedded in universities. So he is their liberal?

Trump Administration Drama

The drama in the Prez's Administration isn't too surprising, given the actors and their ideology. I wonder whether it will harm the U.S. or the U.S. economy. There is the possibility of the so-called Black Swan event. It might happen because Trump goofs, as he tends to do. He's not anywhere even close to a genius. Just an above-average ballsy loudmouth with a knack for giving speeches and for communicating his particular point of view. I have watched him on television speak before MAGA crowds--his supporters. In truth, he gives better speeches than Clinton ever did, and he connects with people a lot better. After a bit, I turned the sound off, and watched him. He is better than any other politician I know of at one particular thing. He has great body language and knows how to use his hands. Clinton had no idea what to do with any part of her body, always came across as awkward and, her detractors said, phony. It's because Clinton was more of an introvert. She was, after all, just a nerdy scholar who happened to get swept up by Bill Clinton. She definitely got promoted above her abilities and competence, but that happens quite often in politics, and one could argue the same could be said of Trump.

Trump is a natural extrovert and basks in any kind of attention, negative or positive, and he has an impressive, thick skin. I don't imagine he is really upset over the whole Bannon deal or over much of anything else. Instead, he keeps his eye on the game at all times, always looking at how to win. That, I think, is his secret. He comes across as emotional and passionate, and to an extent, he is genuine, but in reality, at his core, he is calculating all the time. It is probably true that he pays little attention to details, has little knowledge of world affairs, lies frequently to make himself look better, traffics in deceit and corruption, harbors numerous personal vendettas (he's a game-player), and is suffering from early stage Alzheimer's, but he may get through his term, nonetheless. Key is whether Ivanka can exert a moderating influence and remain as a close advisor. After four years, he's done. No way people will sign up for another four years with Drama Queen, I think.

I just hope Trump doesn't get us into yet another war. It seems to me, the U.S. has borne the heavy weight of the Cross for far too long. Time for other countries to shoulder the burden of World Policeman. We are twenty trillion in debt. This is no time to take on new commitments. I am for investing, not in war, but in infrastructure, here in the U.S. I place the need for better infrastructure even above health care, because better infrastructure would result in better health care. I am talking about better, safer, faster trains, better roads and bridges, Universal, Cheap High-Speed Internet in every mile of this country, whether rural or not, and better services from the government. It is rather shameful, some of the things I see and hear about regarding government services. For instance, some government offices still run on Windows XP. There is nowhere in the world that Windows XP should still be in use. I don't care how much money it costs, people need to upgrade, or else go Linux.

Alas, Iran!

My father bore a striking physical, although not intellectual or spiritual, resemblance to the raghead mullahs of Iran, including the so-called Supreme Leader, an asinine dolt that plunged vibrant Persia into economic depression and cultural and spiritual decline with his sexual and social hang-ups and long-nourished bitter enmity against the United States and Israel. That fool has punished his people, rather than the U.S., which could care less for all his whining, in truth.

Proud Persians are tortured, imprisoned, psychologically crippled, sexually maimed, and sometimes murdered, for no good reasons at all, but just due to the whims of the ignorant mullahs, who think they have a direct line to the Omnipotent. They do not. The gods hate them, without exception. They are hated and reviled universally. They must continue to imprison, to murder, and to torture their own people, for that is the only way they can cling to power, and that is their curse and their damnation, to be compelled to such acts. Both the tortured and the torturer suffers and both become bankrupt in spirit.

I am glad I don't live in Iran, among the savages. If I did, then I'd probably be investigating all of the ins and outs of cyanide, strychnine and like substances for ending my life, but only after, don't you know, only after taking some of the oppressors with me into the grave. I believe it is a duty to resist such tyranny as is exhibited in Iran. It is a solemn, spiritual duty, and to die without taking the life of an oppressor is a grave Sin in Iran. I would seek at all costs to maximize the loss of life and the suffering among the oppressors, which is to say the mullahs, and take every precaution to ensure that my goals were obtained, prior to my own destruction.

Swatting Gnats

The U.S. could yet emerge victorious in the current world scenario, if our people proved worthy, which remains to be seen. The odds are in our favor. The U.S. is fantastically powerful in every way. North Korea barks about its nukes, but through science, we could neutralize nukes, even ICBMs, from North Korea, Russia, China, Iran and all comers.

I doubt, however, whether our people are ready to devote resources to complicated, hard to understand science and scientific research, instead of the usual, par for the course: bombing ragheads in the Middle East.

The problem with bombing ragheads is they just reproduce like rabbits and make more ragheads. What's the point? The fanatic, despotic Muslims never were a realistic threat to the U.S., just a distraction and an annoyance. They are miserable savages, yes. They should be sealed off from North and South America, Europe and Australia and contained in the miserable Third World region with the other savages. Instead, our myopic leaders squandered the nation's treasure bombing places that were probably improved by the bombing and never were anything special to begin with. Meanwhile, Asia and the real threat, China, crept around and surprised us with a nuclear-armed NK.

North Korea is just a sock-puppet for China, yet another distraction while China wages economic warfare, seizing all manufacturing, and the U.S. transforms into a service economy unfit and unprepared for any serious endeavor, useless and dependent.

The United States, twenty trillion in debt and lagging in scientific research and development, with Trump wanting to spend money, not on science--goodness no!--but on military hardware, bullets and bombs and gadgets, in order to enrich his crony friends, and possibly wage war against the next annoyance, the outlook for the U.S. does not appear all that great. China's long-term strategy, meanwhile, is apparent to those who watch and listen. China's strategy must succeed, if the U.S. does not change course and focus on what is real, rather than swatting gnats.

The proud old lion gasps in the jungle as the bold hyena comes to claim dinner.

Trump's Right about USPS. USPS Sucks.

Trump's right here. Even a stopped clock will be right twice a day.

The USPS is managed by morons, who should be placed in a facility. It operates at a loss, because the management does not know what to do, other than play with their thumbs. Management wants the USPS to be privatized, so they are doing everything in their power to destroy the USPS.

The USPS gives money to Amazon for no apparent reason, charging half what UPS and FedEx charge to deliver packages. Meanwhile, they pay the drivers $15 an hour, with no benefits at all, and no full-time hours. They use part-time, disposable temp workers. Very few drivers are full-time, with benefits. The USPS does not provide good jobs to most of its employees. Instead, it is far worse than Wal-Mart. The driver jobs are noisy, dusty, long hours for little pay, and the vehicles are unheated, uncooled, violent, and liable to cause severe, permanent hearing loss in drivers. For $15 an hour, a driver can expect to lose 25% of his hearing for life, suffer injury to joints, bones and tissue, and possibly lose a limb, because the little jalopies the drivers run around in on dirt roads for twelve hours at a time are unsafe, antiquated WW2-style jeeps.

Lawsuits are Good for Apple

I'm glad Crapple is finally facing the music over their Iphone batteries. The problem with Iphones is simple. How do you replace the battery? Yeah, it is complicated, and that's Crapple's fault, for putting users in a pickle. Either pay to replace the user's battery every 3 years, for eternity, or else design the Iphone to be easily serviced by the user, as all devices used to be, just ten years ago. This planned obsolescence bit is tricky and tiresome.

Apple is a tax dodger anyway for hiding all their profits overseas and refusing to pay much of anything in taxes to anybody, even poor old Ireland. They have no goodwill as far as I am concerned. Microsoft is a better corporate citizen than Apple, any day of the week, and that's saying something.

While I'm on Crapple's case, why did they move all the jobs to China? They should stop calling themselves American. List Apple in the Chinese stock exchange and just call themselves a Chinese company. They don't need U.S. protection. Their executive types need to move over to Beijing and learn all about the tender mercies of Chinese law and attend all those Communist Party meetings.

I don't give a hoot about new Iphone models, because they have zero features that interest me. There is one feature that would interest me: a replaceable battery. Will Apple ever design such a phone? No, because they're greedy, irresponsible idiots.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

It is a law of the Universe that no good deed goes unpunished. People fear change of any kind, whether it is for good or not. By doing good, one disrupts the status quo, and it is the familiar that is preferred and trusted, whether the familiar be good or ill, while change of any kind arouses suspicion, because many cannot understand the desire to do good, and instead brood over imaginary deeper plots and schemes.

Because Guns are Everywhere

One of the many problems with simple-minded folk is they see conspiracy and malice where there is none, as in police shootings such as this recent one. The actual problem in that case was caused by a fleeing felon and thief.

Guns are about as good as we've got at this stage, but they are brutal, klunky weapons, and we have to be willing to accept that accidents will happen--often. Police require the ability to exercise deadly force simply because deadly force is widely distributed amongst our criminal class. If our criminals were not armed with deadly weapons, then yes, the police could be kinder, gentler, and have fewer accidents. But that's not the case. We have to get used to reality. The reality is that yes, the police will off innocent folk by mistake from time to time, because it comes with the job, and there is always going to be a certain percentage of accidents and misjudgements, both due to the human factor and due to the fog of war. People casting blame blindly upon police do not grasp the challenges that the police are up against in today's heavily armed society.

Relocate Israel

The simmering problem of Israel and the Middle East could have been solved long ago, but radical solutions were not fully considered. Israel should relocate its citizens and materiel to an unused, sparsely inhabited land-mass five times its size in the Australian continent, and pay Australia for the land. If they don't want to move, due to sentimentality or religion, then the U.S. should withdraw all protection and all funding, and let the Israelis duke it out with the surrounding countries. I am willing to bet the Israelis would come around, faced with annihilation by their hostile Muslim neighbors. It is high time that Israel stop being a drain on the U.S. Treasury. One day, the U.S. may not even be able to help Israel. One country can't count on another one being there for it indefinitely. That's a bad long-term strategy.

There are very few people in Australia, with the consequence that much of Australia goes unused, being desert and scrub, and the Israelis have the knack of knowing what to do with that sort of land. Australia would benefit not only from the money down on the purchase, but by having an industrious, well-educated neighbor (possibly a quasi-independent state) which could join the Commonwealth. The smart Israelis would set a good example for the Australians and teach them a thing or two about military endeavors, as well. I bet a lot of Australians would eventually want to go live and work in their new neighbor. Israel can then focus on what it is good at, science and technology, without the distraction of fanatical, stupid, know-nothing Muslims blowing things up and killing people.

Meanwhile, all materiel currently in Israel must be dismantled and shipped to the new homeland or destroyed, leaving nothing behind but a wasteland, where the U.S. can dump nuclear waste and other highly hazardous materials, to deliver the Muslims a Pyrhhic Victory, a victory they won't want and won't be able to exploit for a thousand years. Any buildings, farms or equipment left behind should be destroyed by fire or bomb. The Muslim fanatics now spending billions of dollars on terrorism can learn about the virtue of work, and spend billions to rebuild roads, shacks and sewage systems. Nothing should be left behind for them, and they can spend the next couple centuries cleaning up nuclear and biological waste. They don't deserve to profit from the unhappy situation they created, and it will be a good lesson for them to farm on radioactive soil filled with viruses, bacteria and heavy metals.

Arguing the Case for Hanging

This insect certainly argues in favor of the restoration of hanging as the death penalty in the U.S. There ought to be a scaffold erected about every hundred mile radii where specimens such as this are hung from the neck until the crows get bold and peck at dainty little snacks.

Cold

To be a good operator in this world requires replacing stock H. Sapiens blood with ice water. Sang froid, I believe it is called. For we have many opinions, don't we, about the way things are, but opinions do get in the way, and after all, aren't we wrong some of the time? The superb operator listens to realpolitik, to the sense, not the appearance, of reality. Because reality is not as our opinions seek to make it, but rather is independent of us and our beliefs and preferences. The Universe is greater than any--or all--of us. These things I accept.

This was the reason I stayed fully invested in the United States stock market after Donald Trump became President. I sensed inflation would rise, but so would the stock market. Donald is simple, and it is not difficult to walk though his mind and lounge about on his mental furniture while deploring his atrocious taste in decor. He telegraphs everything he thinks the moment he thinks it, all the time, and is remarkably consistent, and even his many lies are transparent, for he is rather a buffoon. This makes investing easy, even with little knowledge of the market.

Just because I am making money does not mean I support Trump or the Republicans. Money is not everything to me, and I don't think it should be. Money does not equate to morality, as those right-wing Christians that adhere to the Prosperity Gospel seem to think. I know that, a hundred years ago, John D. Rockefeller helped finance the whole theology that linked Christ to the Almighty Dollar. But this idolizing of the rich has a whiff of sulfur about it.

I don't think that removing all of the safety nets from the poor and the ignorant and the stupid is a very nice thing to do. I think that there is a danger that those millions may turn extreme, rather than passing into that good Night gently and quietly. The Opiod crisis, the meth epidemic and the alt-right are warning signals from the poor. There are many guns among the people, more than in the militaries of many nations, and the right to own them is enshrined in our Bill of Rights.

The simple, ultimate and universal answer to the problems of today are both philosophical and technological. We must control the production of our new humans and optimize this production to create the very best from birth. No more defects, no more sub-par, only the very best and the very brightest. This is a very radical concept, unpalatable to many, but will be adopted by other nations such as China even if we do not. This question will decide whether democracy survives, or whether totalitarian dictatorship is the only rational and effective system of government. The United States and its people will be overtaken and enslaved in brutal servitude if we do not adopt a system of Eugenics. This is not to say that the system cannot be humane, gentle and yet effective. There is no need for human suffering or for callous or insensitive treatment of existing humans. There is only a need, and an urgent one, to improve future generations, to be better than me, than you, and better than anyone we know. The brave new world is now, and let's not let China steal it away from us.