Trump's Corruption

James Comey's testimony is damning of Trump, painting a picture of a vain, corrupt buffoon--exactly the person Trump appears. Comey's words have the ring of truth about them.

The Paris Climate Accord

I think Trump may be right to pull out. I see two alternatives.

One, we continue buying oil from terrorists and criminal states. They will give us a haircut. They are colluding right now to raise the price of oil to make the U.S. pay more. Russia is an evil, war-mongering kleptocracy, pure and simple. Saudi Arabia finances global terrorism, Islamic fanaticism, and religious intolerance, as do many other oil-producing nations. That results in more crime, more war, and trillions spent overseas bombing towel-heads. Global warming drastically increases as bombs and intentional destruction release carbon into the atmosphere, and the people on the ground obviously don't give a hoot about emissions.

The second alternative is the one I prefer: the U.S. produces the carbon-based fuels we need, and we quit transferring so much of our wealth into the hands of criminals and terrorists. This will, in the long term, reduce global warming, because there will be less crime and less conflict in the world, as the criminals and fanatics lose funding. The only reason ISIS was ever a problem was because the Arabs had too much money in their hands, and they don't know what to do with it. Cause trouble is the only thing they know how to do. Same with Russia. More money, more trouble.

Anything that keeps wealth in these United States and out of the hands of the ne'er-do-wells of the world is a good thing. Saudi Arabia in a thousand years has not freed women from slavery, and Russia, given a hundred years, still has a greedy tyrant at the top who starts wars of aggression to acquire territory. Anything to starve those nations and their fellow-travelers is, on balance, good for the world, and will help to stop global warming.

Party's Over, Blitches

I moved my money from stocks to balanced funds, only because a part of me still hates bonds with their lousy < 3% rate. But party's over for stocks. I was warned, now you are too. This is the high water mark. Tide comes in, tide recedes.

Hay hay hay! In May, go away, baybay!

Iran and Rouhani

I'm pleased Rouhani, the supposed "liberal, women's rights reformist" in Iran, won. But he's held back by the same forces that hold back the U.S. in the thrall of Trump and the Republicans. Conservative, ignorant, lazy, do-nothing, learn-nothing, never-crack-a-book folks opposed to education, opposed to ideas, opposed to thinking, opposed to anything that does not involve delusional religion, alcohol, sex, or sugar. These people just want to kill, maim, torture their perceived "enemies", and if they win, then America and Iran will go to war at some point in the future.

Whenever I get down about the U.S., I just browse the information we have on Iran, and that scenario is far more depressing. In Iran, suicide is justifiable, even rational, given the prognosis, a nuclear holocaust, and the current state of affairs, a police state where torture is the norm. To procreate in Iran is evil, and only an evil person would want to have children there. Death is moral and ethical in Iran.

Automation Nation

Driverless cars, driverless trucks? Pilotless planes? There aren't going to be many jobs left for our ever-increasing population. Which means warfare must decimate the people. We are going to have to kill every third person, some way, some how, in order to maintain the standard of living. Perhaps the government can mandate a cyanide pill lottery. If Americans can't stomach forcible birth control, then people are going to have to die anyway. The Republicans have signaled at every turn, they're for people dying, so that's probably where we are going to go. Can't pay a minimum level of taxes? Cyanide pill for you. Either that or forcible organ donation and medical experimentation on the one thing left with any value--the human body. In the end, we will just be livestock for the rich, the Trumps and Trump-wannabes of the world.

Ubuntu Going Public

Understanding arrived for "Rocketvalue" that he doesn't really know what he's doing, based on Unity's flop, Mir's crash, and the mobile phone fiasco. That's what happens when you close your mind against those that have seen a thing or two in their day and go off half-cocked thinking you're going to change the world. Change nothing, except your bank account for the worse. Sure, with today's overheated stock market, cash out. You're guaranteed to claw back those losses, because there are fools a-plenty buying stocks these days, with about 40-to-1 being the average P/E ratio among the Mid- and Small- cap U.S. stocks, as though disaster never occurs in human history.

You may be too late, though. A crash could happen any day now, with Trump's amateur hour, and you're still not public. Should have done this months ago. I completed my migration from 100% stocks into balanced, 60-40 funds, but feel that bonds might even be the better choice. I'm just not sure the moment is right for bonds, with their low rates. Maybe in late 2018?

Prescience

When we arrived at T.J. Maxx, a thought formed of a crystal ball. Sure, I had seen them there before. Soon I found a really nice big one, perfect really, at a mere $30. Now it lies covered upon a blue table with other artifacts for proof against dust.

It is beautiful, beside its utilitarian features, and even if were never used for anything in particular, it makes a good shelf piece. I intend to use it, but not now. Later, maybe even many years from now.

Indonesia

Indonesia is a sorry fanatical Muslim country, which sentenced a Christian governor to two years for merely giving an opinion on a passage in the Koran. No immigration should be allowed from Indonesia. Goods from Indonesia should be taxed at a rate of no less than 100% to reflect the cost of terrorism, which Indonesia exports. Trump is definitely right about the need to wise up about hostile foreign countries. A large number of Muslims have committed their lives to murdering or converting all non-Muslims. To pretend otherwise is willful ignorance, in the face of a stream of media reports that prove the intent to do harm. Indonesia is by no means the most radical Islamic regime, it is merely the one with the least excuse for being so, because it is outside the Middle East.

Four Things About Me

1. I believe that sex is O.K. and also "no big deal," which means, we should not make a big deal out of it. Homosexuality, heterosexuality--neither is very important in the grand scheme of things, and the gods do not care. We can take it or leave it. In the future, it is likely that the human species, barring some catastrophe, if Progress continues and the Zombie Apocalypse is averted, will procreate in the laboratory rather than the womb. Romantics shudder, but realists rejoice. Sex is rather inefficient and problematic, if one is honest.

2. I believe that it is possible to love and understand most, if not all, human beings, and to pity those that one does not understand nor wish to understand.

3. I believe that kindness is a better policy than cruelty, even for pragmatic reasons, let alone ethics.

4. I believe in the System, but realize that it goes berserk sometimes, like any machine. It is berserk against marijuana and prostitution. It is berserk against the Middle East. We have no truck with the Middle East. We have truck with North America and, to a much lesser extent, South America. Our interests are in the New World. Our leaders need to glue their eyeballs to a globe and ponder the wisdom therein. This is the United States of America, not of Afghanistan, thank you not at all. So why did we blow a trillion dollars in that dump?

The Failure of the Establishment

Putin-aligned governments arise in the West due to two key failures of asinine establishment governments. In a spasm of Kumbaya loving-thy-neighbor myopia, they opened up their national borders to hostile outsiders from alien cultures, inviting trouble, and neglected to take meaningful action on jobs. They had to do only two things. Close the borders and expel the Islamists by any means necessary. Stop importing cheap stuff from Asia, and start employing your own workers. It really is as simple as that. Due to the failure of the establishment to grasp these political necessities, Putin's dark star ascends.

In the final analysis, evil intelligence will triumph over good incompetence, ten times out of ten. The only reason good prevails is that is the only way that does not lead to self-destruction. Evil vanquishes itself--intelligent or not. The very nature of evil works against it.

If mankind is, on balance, evil, then the next conclusion is self-evident.

Love Versus Despair

Do I gloat over bombs dropped, souls lost? I acknowledge the blood of my ancestors and don't fight it because I think they were right in some wise, because I am here.

What I want is universal love in the final outcome, as conflicts cease and nations unite to resolve the real problems facing mankind: global warming, disease, poverty, pollution. Kim Jong Un barks up the wrong tree, lives in the 1950s, does not live in the same time we do. Whether he goes or not is irrelevant, but he must cease disturbing geopolitics and shut the hell up. When global media cease trumpeting his nonsense, then his prognosis for continued breath improves. That is my advice for the regime of N. Korea, and I hope they don't take it.

Universal love is not such a far-fetched hippy notion; it is achievable, even now, with Putin and Xi and Trump dominating the headlines. There is yet hope.

The Mother of All Bombs

I am rather pleased Trump permitted our military to bomb the hell out of ISIS. An 11,000 pound bomb sounds like perfect medicine for Islamic fanatics. Let them incinerate. That is what they crave, deserve, are destined for: annihilation. Worshippers of Thanatos, whom you name Allah, meet your god! If there is a representative of absolute evil in the world, then that is ISIS, which tortures and slays the innocent out of depravity. And compounding their evil is their usurping the name of an Egyptian goddess. I hope the ISIS bases get completely obliterated, with no survivors at all. The main imperative will be that there are no survivors and all of their equipment and infrastructure is reduced to rubble. It is the only way to eradicate a disease. Perhaps sending a strong message to North Korea is helpful as well. Kim Jong Un deserves death a thousand times over. The very stars sing for his death. Even if Kim did manage to lob a nuclear bomb, it may be worth the fallout to get rid of his regime forever and leave nothing to take its place, because North Korea will no longer exist as a habitable land, for the next thousand years. North Korea is the sorriest country in the world and a long-term threat to peace and stability in the world.

Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst

I hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I hope that the U.S. economy improves, that the world improves, that humankind enjoy peace and prosperity. In the brooding hours of the late evening, I suspect otherwise, and am reminded of the old slogan, "what fools these mortals be." Look at Syria, North Korea, Iran, China, Russia, and even our beloved United States. There are many problems, and some problems are beyond our capacity, morally and intellectually, to deal with, such as global warming. We are neither intelligent nor ethical enough, collectively, to deal with global warming. What will happen, will happen. That, I feel, is a given. Also, nuclear weapons--I think that in my lifetime, the mushroom cloud will arise once more over a major metropolitan area. It strikes me as unrealistic, given our history, to suppose that feeble Man, given a mighty weapon, will refrain, out of mere reason, or ethics, from using it. We use the tools at our disposal, all the time, for a variety of reasons, with barely a thought to the consequences; such has been our history. Thus, Earth is going to be a pretty hostile place for living creatures at some point in the future, and I see that as a given, again based upon history. To know history is to gain the ability to predict the future. Earth's end as a happy, pleasant breeding ground for humans saddens me, because good planets like this are depressingly scarce. We can't just up and move to Mars, now can we?

Oldcastle is Oldfashioned

I'm going to single out Oldcastle, but they are by no means the worst offenders to incur my wrath.

I am talking about companies that torture the job-seeker/hunter/browser with endless questionnaires and tests, and topping it off by forcing the applicant to regurgitate the entire contents of his painstakingly crafted resume.

Dear Mr. Corporation. If you make applying for a job a fool's errand, you will employ fools.

I opted against Oldcastle because they want me to perform long thankless arduous work for free just to apply for a job. Make it easy, and I might grant you twenty-five seconds of my time. If you're lucky. Otherwise, I really don't see the point in applying for a job with a company run by fools.