An Inquiry about the DOL Video PSA

I got an email from the DOL. They wanted to know my address and phone number so they could have someone call me and respond to the two posts I made concerning Secretary Solis' video PSA urging "undocumented" workers to contact them so they can collect pay they think they deserve from unscrupulous employers.

Wow. Couldn't they just send an email or respond to my post?

FB

Afghanistan?/Pakistan? What Goes On Here?

We have Predator strikes from a couple of sources in both Afghan and Pak areas of operation. (AOs) We are taking out Taliban leaders and other group leaders who support the Taliban. If we get lucky, we get an Al Qa'ida operative. If you don't know, there are several spellings but they all refer to the same organization.

There aren't a lot of real Al Qa'ida operatives. It's actually a hard organization to get into. They have certain requirements. However, they do have lots of soldiers or supporters who are more like wanna-bes: They don't have the qualifications to get into the core group so they volunteer to do all kinds of things to prove their worth. The core of Al Qa'ida are smart, ruthless and completely driven by ideology. It's easy to think of them like one would think of U.S. Army Special Forces. They go into areas and develop assets to carry out Al Qa'ida missions. Often, these missions are not centrally driven but are locally driven and the mission depends on area.

Under the Bush administration, the ability of these people to operate was greatly diminished. How did he do it? He went after the money. Whole teams of agents worked in dimly lit rooms on computers and their tasks were to disrupt the Al Qa'ida money supply. In the process, names of intermediaries surfaced. These amounted to contacts, subagents and people like the coordinators who we saw operate during the massacre in Mumbai. (This is the new name for the city most knew as Bombay. I wonder if the gin maker will change the name from Bombay Gin to Mumbai Gin to be politically correct.) But while we had names and approximate whereabouts, getting to them was something else entirely. We can't just send agents into foreign countries to "take out" belligerents. We might be powerful but we have limitations. It's funny because of the way we have been educated, we tend to think along certain lines that limit our ability to deal with systems that don't match our own. Korzybski was clear about this. Thought processes can free thinking but also restrict it. The restrictions are indicated by the structure of our speech. Another problem was that we had so much data on foreign operatives, that it was sometimes hard to filter out who the important players were and who were simply mouthpieces. We didn't have the manpower to investigate every name that we gathered.

Now we have a different program in place. Many of the programs initiated by Bush were axed by Obama. Some of these were the most effective intelligence gathering operation we had in place since WWII. We have decided, as policy, to change the playground so fewer people stray into armed alternatives. What do I mean by this? It's simple, we are trying to develop or assist governments to develop opportunities in the hope that these will lure potential combatants into peaceful endeavors. What a great idea! How could something like this go wrong. Well, I'm going to point out one potential snag.

Canadians, with the possible exception of French-Canadians (That pesky and ridiculous hyphen again.) Americans, Mexicans, Japanese and citizens of many other countries have a clear concept of America, Mexico, Japan, etc. In other words, people have a national identity even though they may represent a minority in that country. This is not the case in many countries in the mideast and is especially true in Afghan and Pak. Iraq was different because, for a time, they really had a government and a national army. There was an identity. In Pak, it's different. I have correspondence with a Pak who is in the government. He's pretty high up in the hierarchy. We were casually talking and I was stunned to realize that this sophisticated, urbane, very well educated man really didn't have a strong concept of Pakistan as a sovereign state. Wow! I had a conversation with some Afghans and came away with the same feeling. It wasn't that anyone said directly that they weren't Afghan but how they talked about their country.

We are dealing with governments who have members of those government operating without a clear perspective of their own country. They do have tribal allegiances though and often departments reflect this. So, questions arise:

1. What do we think we are going to create in these areas?

2. Do our plans take the lack of a "national" concept into the equations we are using in dealing with these governments?

2a. If we are factoring this into our plans, how long do we think it will take before the typical Afghan or Pak views his country the same as a typical American views America?

2b. If we aren't taking the lack of a concept into consideration, how can we possibly determine whether anything we do is successful?

3. How much is religion connected with country concept and are Afghans or Paks willing to divide the two as we have done?

Predator strikes are not policy. They may give emotional gratification but I want to posit something many might not be considering. Families are extensive in both Afghan and Pak. People have local families but also family members in a lot of places. Many young men went to Madrasahas to study Islam and these schools were the root of the Taliban (Students) in the uncontrolled border areas. In fact, there are similar schools that are local. The predator strikes do get us some kills but the collateral damage is huge. People who have lost family due to collateral damage are unforgiving in their condemnation of the policy that so freely takes, what they consider to be, innocent lives.

The average Afghan and Pak do not like the Taliban. They want music and poetry and Islamic festivals that go on for days. Much of the Islam practiced in these areas is of the Sufi variety where religious experience is a big part of life and music, art and poetry add to the quality of life, not the quantity of life. Many people do not want these festivals and celebrations to stop.

The Taliban comes in and tells them that dancing, singing, making music and poetry are against Allah and the Koran. (I haven't even written about the cookies and cakes but that's for another post.) But while the average person wants festivals, it's not so clear that the average person has a clear concept or wants a "Western" type country. Until we start factoring this into our plans, we are woefully unprepared for any success we have that doesn't match what we consider success. This is sad and shows the myopia of American foreign policy.

FB

Why Do I Write This Blog?

I was sent an email the other day asking why I blog. Other than coming up with a smart-ass answer designed to make me look superior and the poser to look stupid, I decided to be honest. It occurred to me that the people who are always telling or asking others to "own up to their mistakes" or "always tell the truth" are really looking for any weakness they can exploit for their benefit and your loss. I don't think is was always this way.

So, here it goes.

I have been following news events for some time and have experience in some of the areas being reported. For example, I did a lot of research and wrote reports, area studies and analyses for a specific area of the world. Much to my surprise, while these polemics didn't have a lot of circulation, they were somehow revived a few years back and things I was writing about over twenty years ago were suddenly deemed relevant.

Currently, news is hardly objective. I was watching a report by a journalist and the anchor stated that he wanted the journalists opinion on the events being reported. Now, the "opinion" of the journalist was in complete contradiction to the facts reported. In other words, while the journalist was supposed to be reporting events and, in fact, did a pretty good job with just the facts, what was really being sought was the journalist slant on the events. A slant from one person is no more valid than a slant from another regardless of job or position. Anyone can develop an opinion after researching facts. The opinion my be well supported by facts or repudiated by facts but it is still an opinion. I know how to analyze facts and derive positions based on those facts that allow operations moving forward. So as small as my audience might be, I am as capable of deriving trends from facts as the highest paid journalists.

Being able to simplify difficult and complex ideas happens to be one of my strong points. Sometimes that is missing from even such luminaries as major anchors and commentators. People build opinion based on a series of observed facts and these opinions are biased by belief. While we have become a two-party system, polarization of position is not necessarily the domain of one or the other party. So quick identifiers don't really help decipher what one is listening to on any main station. Commentators and journalists do not really want you informed. They want you persuaded. Bill Oreilly can hoot "fair and balanced" all he wants but in reality, his opinions are really left of center. This is curious because supposedly, liberals have tagged him as a conservative. But if one really evaluates his positions, he is more left than not. Why isn't someone pointing this out? If he is so popular, does that mean that most of America is left of center even though he and others constantly point out that America is really a conservative population? We now have Obama and as liberal an administration as I can remember. Most of the news and most opinion is actually supportive even though there is a supposed balance in news reporting. I have always wondered how Obama could have been elected if Americans are supposedly right of center for the most part.

But still, most of a newscast is opinion. An anchor will give a fact and they will bring in people to comment on the "fact" as if they are experts in the field. In fact, they are simply people with opinions. George Bernard Shaw wrote a fantastic play called "Don Juan in Hell." In the play, Don Juan plays a character searching for "truth." He has a really great line: "People mistake opinion for intelligence." The more I follow any news, this is what I come away with: Broadcasters act as if they are intelligent simply because they have opinions. They must think we are absolute idiots to take anything they say seriously.

As I said, I have been listening to or watching news for quite some time and wonder how some of the commentators can continue to hold court when 90% of what they say is biased or completely wrong. I found/find myself saying, "Who the hell would believe that." or "Doesn't that person have any historical perspective at all?" At any rate, I was arguing with the television so much that I finally decided to put my positions out for other people to read. Like everything in life, some agree and some disagree.

Some years back, I ran for a local political office. I had my eyes opened. It was astounding how the biggest liars got the most attention. And I mean liars. I made three promises: 1) I would always speak as factually as I could. 2) I wouldn't engage in negatives but instead focused on solutions. 3) I wouldn't accept any PAC money from any special interests. I laid my platform out and got involved in all the round table discussions where I learned a valuable lesson: Never, never, never answer a question you don't know by stating, "I don't really know but I will find out and get back to you." What I learned was that if asked a question I didn't know, divert the point of the question to something I want to talk about and ignore the original question or make the question of minimal importance.

Well, I see a lot of this when politicians are questioned. Some, like Barney Frank are masterful at not only diverting questions but on replying with such nonsense that he sounds profound. I, for one, am sick of this behavior. If I can even get one other person to start listening to everything politicians say with a huge amount of cynicism, I will have done some good. I don't expect or even want everyone who reads my missives to agree with me but I hope that they cause people to think.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story back in 1961 called "Harrison Bergeron." In it, society has become totalitarian and intelligence is handicapped so that everyone thinks on the same level. Harrison, a mysanthropic kind of character, finds a way to defeat the handicaps. He rebels and with a ballerina who he has also stripped of handicaps, dances on TV. His message is, "Turn off the message." In other words, dump the handicaps, turn of TV and start experiencing the world from a new perspective.

Well, I'm no Harrison Bergeron but I do want people to start examining everything they are presented with. I would hope that every "truth" is treated as a lie, every opinion as bias, every comment viewed as a lie designed to get you to think a certain way. God forbid you start really thinking for yourself. People wonder why we don't have people of stature like the founders now. We do have them but we have created a self-perpetuating system that makes it almost impossible to get such people together. Remember, these men were rebelling against not only British rule but the whole idea of society as it was practiced. We need to find the same kind of people now. People who are not driven by any ideology other than securing opportunity for the most number of people to be the best and attempt the best that they can.

I started this blog with the idea that maybe, just maybe my writing and my ideas find a home outside of dogma. I hope my writing causes people to do some research and never look at broadcast news the same again. Back in the '70s, there was an LA station with the call letters KRHM. One of the DJs was a guy named Skip Weshner. (I actually met him in a Mexican restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd. I was there with a date and we were at the bar waiting for our table and this guy started talking. This was in the '80s and based on what he was saying, I asked if he had ever heard of Skip. I almost fell over when he said that he was one in the same so I started buying him drinks and we talked until the place closed. My date was not happy but so goes life. Skip was more interesting.) At any rate, Skip was relieved of his position because the station had either been sold or was reinventing itself as something like KKDJ or something like that. I happened to like Skip because his show was eclectic. He played all kinds of music and would mix opera with hillbilly with jazz with ethnic. His last broadcast, he let loose with a diatribe I'll never forget. He blasted the FCC, commercial radio and the broadcasting business in general. His point: You think you are free and you think you have choice but in reality, everything is controlled. Even such alternative outlets as the Pacific group which includes KPFA, KPFK and a few others is controlled by politics of one kind or another. In other words, everything is self censored in some way.

Skip, in his own way, was emulating Harrison. I don't expect to do that but I would, again, hope my pieces cause people to examine what is going on around them with such a critical ear and eye that they start seeing the BS they are being fed as news. George Washington wrote that, (I'm paraphrasing) "All in all, truth is the best course." I don't know about truth but do know about facts. I'll leave finding truth to the philosophers. But I can certainly point out where I think we are being misled intentionally and I hope people change their lives by engaging in self discovery.

FB

The Runaway President: Presidential bloodletting? One wonders.

It turns out that McCrystal, the general who resigned after inappropriate comments while a reporter was within earshot, is a die-hard democrat who voted for Obama.

Wait, wait! A picture is emerging. The first general who McCrystal replaced was also a reputed democrat. So it appears with McCrystal. It turns out that Goldman-Sachs executives were almost exclusively democrats and G-S was the largest contributor to the Obama campaign. Then we have BP, who as an oil company, donated the most to the Obama campaign. We have the banks who donated large amounts to the Obama campaign.

What do all of the above have in common? President Obama has attacked all of them with a rather unpresidential vitriol of which he should be ashamed. Oh wait, what other Obama supporter is also on the chopping block? Why, it's Blago. You know, I don't think there has been the appearance of a bloodletting like this since Stalin.

But are all these public dressing-downs just show? Is Obama so corrupt that he uses his aides to bolster his own image as a preserver and enforcer of presidential power while in reality he is making back room deals with the same people? What is going on while all this is happening?

Obama has changed the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama has passed financial legislation that will, in the end, reduce America's ability to compete on the foreign market.

Obama is introducing energy legislation that will cripple America and Americans, drive the cost of energy higher and destroy the middle class along with small business.

Big business, like the banks, offshore oil, (Our $2B loan to Petrobras owned in large part by George Soros comes to mind.) foreign companies and foreign governance will become a more dominant part of American life. The Constitution which is supposed to protect us from government excesses has been rendered wall paper in an effort to reduce America to a third world country.

Look realistically at his record and how he governs and you will see a total disregard for the Constitution of which he is supposed to be a scholar. What did he do, learn about the constitution so he could find ways to circumvent it? It appears to me that we are being shown the shiny bauble while the other hand contains hand cuffs.

What goes on here?

FB

Can America Survive 24/7 News? Part 2: The Trial of Madam Henriette Caillaux

A horrible crime had been committed. A wife of a former French PM shot an killed a political rival who just happened to be the editor of one of the most popular newspapers in France: Le Figaro.

An interesting sidebar: There used to be a cafe Le Figaro in Los Angeles. (It might still be there but I haven't been near the place in over 20 years.) The menu was a reproduction of the famous newspaper. The cafe gained repute for being a haven for left-wing radicals and effete intellectuals who spent hours discussing leftist authors and political systems. But considering the times, coffee shops were hot beds of alternative thinking. Funny that they would pick a cafe with a name that epitomized right-wing thinking. Life is, indeed, strange.

So back to Madam Caillaux. The trial began on July 20, 1914. She was acquitted on July 28, 1914. Unlike our times, trials went much quicker then. Total war broke out about two weeks later and France was totally unprepared. French society and diplomatic circles were so caught up in the trial that many missed some important events like Gabriel Princip shooting Archduke Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. It was just one month before acquittal but was during the last month of a four-month pretrial investigation which completely occupied all reportage. They missed other things too like the total breakdown of diplomacy, political intrigues that would have indicated that the existing political situation was rapidly spinning out of control. They would have noticed Germany mobilizing and other countries preparing for war. Here are some milestones:

* Midpoint in the trial, Serbia had been served papers by Austria backed by Germany. War was eminent. The ultimatum was so harsh that there was not doubt that there would be a Balkan war.

* While the French followed the trial, Germany and Austria mobilized. Warnings from lower-level officials were ignored as were data from spies.

* Poincaire, the existing PM, who was unaware of the ultimatum and had no idea about the mobilization made a trip to Russia to make sure the alliance was intact. The trip is a curious one with no concrete results. But it came at a weird time. He left Russia on July 23 to return to France. The trip had lots of press everywhere but in France and this is important because the Austrians timed the delivery of papers of war to coincide with Poincaire being in transit.

* The formal declaration of war from Austria on Serbia took place on July 28, 1914. There was nothing in the French press because of the Caillaux trial.

* August 1 Germany declares war on Russia. Germany was operating under something called the Schlieffen Plan. This was known to France and to Russia and basically stated that if Germany ever went to war with Russia, they would have to invade France first. So on August 3, Germany declares war on France.

* Germany invades France on August 23. Less than a month after the acquittal of Madam Caillaux, French troops were completely unprepared for the onslaught. Remember that modern communication did not exist in 1914 so while events spiraled out of control, French troops sat. In addition, one just doesn't call and get troops mobilized like in movies. It takes a lot of planning, the establishment of communication, preparation of tools of movement like trucks, tanks and cars, food requirements, water and sanitation, ammunition and a thousand other expendable items used by an army. In other words, the French military was caught completely unawares. By the time they realized the inevitable, it was too late. The enemy was at the gates.

So to recap: A huge trial, lots of scandal, a fixated press and public, an uninformed government, an increasing international crisis and a French army completely unprepared. This is the result of a fixation with news that had nothing to do with what was really happening. French government had broken down or stopped functioning because of a trial. In Part 3, I'll connect the dots between what happened to France in 1914 and what is happening currently in America.

FB

What's Up Bill: The Lost Perspective of Bill Oreilly

It appears that Bill Oreilly has lost perspective. Maybe it's hubris that comes with success or he's feeling intimidated by Glenn Beck. At any rate, I was watching his show when he made a statement that I would have suspected from a left-wing broadcaster. Ok, maybe it's Bill being "fair and balanced" although that has completely lost meaning. Mostly F&B means arguments from fixed positions. Who cares? We know what each side stands for so it's an exercise in intellectual onanism.

I usually watch or listen (via XM) to CNN, MSNBC and FOX. If I can I tune in CNBC or FOXBusiness during the day although Bloomberg has a good broadcast with lots of data and little commentary. But back to Bill.

The discussion centered around Freedom of Speech. Now, long ago, people realized that total freedom had to have some limits. The old story of yelling "fire" in a theater and libel suits show that society has felt the need to put limits on certain types of speech. There are people who go to military funerals to protest and I, for one, find this as offensive as yelling "fire" falsely. People simply do not have the "freedom" to disturb another's sorrow with a protest against anything, But the courts see different. I can't help but feel that this undermines the military and military families and is a sign of our times that this would be tolerated. In other words, we have it too good for our own good.

So, through all my digressions, I'll get to the statement that drove me up a wall. Oreilly was speaking to a guest on principles and he stated that, "Freedom of speech was a principle and principles are not worth dying for." (I put this in quotes but I may not have the words exactly correct. I copied it down as soon as I heard it but my have missed a word or two. However, I did not miss the intent.) Wha. . .? ?

I was shocked and his guest didn't even blink. The very nature of our brand of free speech (It's much more liberal in France by the way.) is a principle and we have told our servicemen for years that we are fighting for American principles of which freedom of speech is one of the most basic. In our Bill of Rights, it is Number 1:

Amendment 1:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What were the two most important PRINCIPLES the founders considered? Religion and Speech. We fight to preserve these and other PRINCIPLES. The fact that Bill Oreilly could play so loosely with this basic understanding is curious indeed. I have read his books and they are full of principles. Nowhere do I find any indication in his writing that principles are not worth fighting and dying for. What's up Bill?

Can America Survive 24/7 News? Part 1: The Trial of Madam Henriette Caillaux

Let's have a show of hands here. Does anyone know who Henriette Caillaux happens to be? Let's see, Harold, do you know of her? "Well sir, wasn't she third backup singer for Jaques Brel?" No, not quite right except that Brel like Caillaux was French. Maybe Jacquiline knows?

"No sir. I really have no idea. Besides, I'm French-Canadian not French."

I have to say that hyphenated distinctions haven't worked well in Canada and have only led to a feeling of disunity. In America, hyphenated descriptions have led to problems and where the American experience should be one of inclusion, hyphenated distinctions have led to the rise of special interest groups rather than groups unified around American principles. I would prefer, if one needs to identify themselves ethnically (Another problem I'll address in another post.) that we say or use something like I'm American of Italian extraction or American of African roots. There's no need for anyone to identify himself as an African-American. Quite frankly, the persistence of this is stupid and only causes us to view each other as something other than Americans.

But enough digression. The real issues here are the perversion of news to fill time, our fixation with news as entertainment and our fascination with scandal involving people we have elevated to prominence through a cult of personality. I'm using a trial from 1914 to illustrate many of the same things we are experiencing now as far as news fixation is concerned.

Since none of you, I'm sure knows anything about the trial of Henriette Caillaux, I will give some background:

* On March 16, 1914 at 6:00PM, Henriette Caillaux entered the offices of Gaston Calmette, the editor of the right-leaning newspaper "Le Figaro" and accidently shot him six times.

* Gaston died from the wounds. Caillaux was detained and arrested at the scene where she freely admitted the "accident."

* During the prior three months, Calmette had used his newspaper to character assassinate and libel Henriette's husband Joseph Calmette. Joseph was a former PM and head of the leftist Radical Party. (Remember, in 1914, left and right political distinctions in France were different than those we know in 2010 America. But they were political enemies and politically polar opposites.)

* The articles had become so vitriolic that even the very liberal sensibilities of the "Belle Epoch" found offense. Even avid readers of Le Figaro found the treatment of a former PM harsh.

* Three days before the killing, Calmette printed a facsimile of a letter from Joseph to his mistress on the front page of Le Figaro. The mistress became Joseph's first wife, Henriette was his second. The letter was not only extremely amorous but also confessed to a certain amount of political double-dealing. Calmette have become a de facto whistle blower. While the French were certainly not prudish, the letter caused a lot of embarrassment for the Caillauxs' (Henriette and Joseph) and the political disclosures added fuel to the fire.

* While the pieces published against Joseph by Calmette were partisan, it was generally viewed that private matters were never discussed. While there may have been private rumors, the press rarely got involved in the personal lives of public figures. By printing the letter, Calmette was ridiculing the social status not only of Joseph but of Henrietta. It turned out that Joseph had left his first wife for a mistress, Henrietta, who became his second along with other "affairs d'amour." Henrietta also had a somewhat scandalous past that she didn't want to be made public in so crass a manner.

So here's what we have so far: Henriette Callaux had seen fit to shoot and kill the editor of Le Figaro for attacks on her husband and for printing a scandalous letter. She was arrested, endured a four month pre-trial "investigation" which completely captivated French high social and diplomatic circles, and was finally tried for the crime. The trial only lasted eight days but the eight days were days that changed the world. This was no ordinary trial. Due to the social status of all parties involved, the entire government was fixated on the proceedings. The coverage made the O.J. Simpson trial, the Watergate Hearings and the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill affair seem like child's play. The coverage was so intense and engrossing that history was changed in a way that had ramifications in most of the Western world. While people were following the trial, Europe spun out of control. I'll deal with the ramifications of the trial in Part 2. In Part 3, I'll deal with the similarities between our fixation with news and the comparison with the "Trial of Madam Caillaux." (1)

FB

1. Information about the trial are taken from: Berenson, Edward, "The Trial of Madam Caillaux", University of California Press, 1992, 296 ppg. Wikipedia and other internet based research.

More on DOL offering services to Illegal Invaders

I have been thinking about the Solis video PSA (You can find it at: http://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/psa.htm) regarding the DOL's desire to help illegal invaders here working illegally to get paid as if they are citizens. This is completely wrongheaded.

I suggest that people should start suing the DOL for misallocation of resources and illegal activities in regards to abetting law breaking. It is against the law to be here illegally. If you assist bringing people across the border, you can go to jail for trafficing in human cargo. If you abet a lawbreaker, you can be charged with aiding and abetting and that is what we should do to the DOL.

FB

Documentado o no!

WOW! Here we have the Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis in a video PSA oriented towards hispanic people. She states that people who work deserve fair pay. They deserve to be paid for their work WHETHER THEY ARE DOCUMENTED OR NOT. In other words, our government is going to work on behalf of illegal invaders here taking jobs away from Americans by doing what, suing the legal Americans who don't pay the illegals accordingly?

What the hell is going on? Our government is suing Arizona over their immigration law. Our government is marking out areas in Arizona, New Mexico and I imagine Texas where illegal invaders have made it impossible for American citizens to go into the areas. So what does our government do? They cede the area to the illegals and keep Americans from going there. The border area amounts to between some twelve to eighty miles. Did you blink? It's eighty miles in some places.

I have cited Korzybski a number of times because I think words are important and meaning should be clear. If we apply the rules of General Semantics to this PSA, we are being told by OUR government that illegal invaders from another country have more rights than American citizens and that land they illegally grab is theirs. It's theirs because we don't have the balls to kick the bastards out. Now, words are important and I hope my meaning is clear. We cannot continue as a Republic with this kind of politics. Our president has and is ceding American sovereign soil to invaders because he can't muster the energy to defend the country.

This is really sad and shows, I think, the absolute dearth of ideas to solve problems both domestic and foreign. I thought when he was elected that he would have some problems but that he had the chance to rise to the position. But we are being undermined by the very people who are supposed to be guaranteeing our security. ARE WE SO SELF-INVOLVED AS A PEOPLE THAT WE ARE ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN WITHOUT EVEN A WIMPER?

Our government should be doing only one thing with the illegal invaders and that is kicking them out. The old adages of give and inch and they will take a mile or the camel's nose under the tent are trite but true. We are being taxed, assessed fees and legislated against and nary an iota of representation. Oops, if you are illegally here, the government will represent you against the very citizens who elected that government.

Follow this link http://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/psa.htm to see the video PSA in English and Spanish. Also, check out the other video PSAs and check out the surnames of the people. I'm all for equality but how could we have this many hispanic people leaving PSAs on the DOL website? Shouldn't there be some balance?

See my upcoming post on "The Trial of Madam Caillaux" for another view of this disaster that makes the BP spill look like salad dressing.

FB

The Promise of Ethanol may be an illusion

Because of the oil spill, the ham handed cleanup process, an absolutely corrupt administration and cronyism that would make baksheesh look like a well meaning tip, Ethanol producers are pressing the flesh, hiring consultants to urge congress to pass ethanol-friendly bills and advertising to convince Americans that ethanol is the future of internal combustion fuels. But is this realistic?

Ethanol seems so, so. . . well, not oil. It's more expensive to produce, needs lots of additives and is, in my thinking impractical. Here's the problem: Most ethanol is made from food crops. In essence, we are using our food to power our transportation. We could have a situation where the cost of both fuel and food rise because of the competition between sales of either. Farmers may switch to ethanol intended crops because a country like China may be willing to pay "whatever" to get fuel as its water supplies dry up. They will be willing to buy anything they need. We witnessed this during the Olympic Games in China where they bought up all the oil they could get and often paid far more than they needed just to ensure that they had such stockpiles of gasoline and oil that there would be no snags during the games.

Who in their right mind wants to see a situation where growers, who grow for profit, choose to send food crops to the ethanol processing plant because it's easier to grow. There are few restrictions for growing crops that will not be consumed. The chemicals and pesticides are not controlled as they are in food crops and the handling is far less expensive. After all, nobody cares about E. coli and salmonella in crops destined for your engine.

If people want to use a biosource for fuel, I would suggest using algae. It has advantages on almost every level like potential. Where the amount of usable fuel from corn is roughly 8%. Various estimates posit that algae can produce 50 to 400 times that. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel). Algae is a little more expensive to convert than sugar based fuels but the impact is far less. Eventually costs will come down as processing increases and new processing discoveries are made. But as long as we think we can rely on fuel from food, we will never fully realize the potential of algae.

So, forget sugar and corn and let's go with pond scum.

FB

Sailing, Sailing O'er The Sea of Oil

The CEO of BP in an act that is so misguided that he must be kicking himself, is stupid beyond description. Here is a company faced with a massive oil rig blow out, lives lost, a misdirected cleanup effort and a PR image that will take years to repair and what does the CEO do? Why, he goes sailing. You see, Hayward owns a racing yacht and his boat was racing so he flew out to rub elbows with the salty set of blue water yachtsmen. What a bonehead.

If he wants to start repairing the BP image, here's what I suggest.

1. Get out of the office and away from the cameras and go out with your board and all the executives in the company and don hazmat gear and start cleaning up the crud.

2. Don't make it a big deal and do it at least three days per week. Other people will see the effort and spread the word around. You don't need to do anything but show up.

3. Visit industries and businesses affected by your spill and spend money. Spend your money. Have your execs do the same thing.

4. Make a personal visit to every family who lost someone on the rig and make sure they get taken care of and compensated for the loss. Of course, you can't replace a life but you can be sure that any children will get taken care of properly.

5. Never, never, never go in front of congress again. They are a bunch of grandstanding idiots who couldn't solve a minor problem let alone a large one and you are wasting your time entertaining them. If they want to see you, have them come out to where you are working to clean up the mess where it is hitting the shore. But never answer a summons from those crooks again.

6. Every day, a BP spokesperson should be releasing news of what you have done and are actively working on. You know, if skimmers and other technology was offered, you should have taken it even though the president said no. I guarantee that he didn't know what the "Jones" act was anyway. He only resisted because of the unions and the unions could care less about anything that doesn't line their pockets with silver. Let someone sue you for taking extraordinary efforts to clean up the spilled oil.

7. In fact, forget regulations as far as environmental restrictions to cleanup methods. Let the government sue you for doing the right thing. You might lose but you will be regarded as a persecuted hero instead of a self-serving, egotistical, smug ass who only cares about himself.

8. Forget vacations and days off. You Hayward and your execs make more than enough money and get great benefits so for the next year, earn it in a meaningful way that will not only help the effort but start cleaning up the BP image.

Ok, BP. Let's see you do the right things.

FB

Socialism and Socialists: A Conversation with a student

Glenn Beck has been running kind of newsessaytorials. Ok, I made up a word to describe his particular brand of investigative journalism. He consistently point out how much of the Obama's administration is based on socialist principles. Oh, he's quite PC to remind folks that Obama is not a socialist or communist but the line is so thin that his intent is clear.

It doesn't seem to matter though because just recently I was involved with a conversation with a person in their late 20s to early 30s. We were talking about the collapse of the EU which he was specializing in as a major (Modern European Political Science) in our local university. Finally he was so frustrated with being unable to answer my questions that he finally blurted: "C'mon Frank, what is so wrong with Socialism? It's a system just the same as Capitalism."

I almost fell over and asked him again were he went to school. You see, I was dumbfounded that this person, who was supposedly specializing in political systems could confuse a political system and an economic system. So I asked what he meant and he went on to give the arguments of private use of public resources and . . . I'm not going to bore you with the rest because if you are reading this, you are politically aware even if you don't agree with my positions.

He continued on and I just listened. When he finally finished his point, I pointed out that he was comparing apples and lead. The two had nothing to do with each other. But that didn't phase him. He honestly wanted to know why it would be so bad if America became a socialist paradise like he thought the EU had become.

Now, for any of you reading this and wondering the same thing, I would suggest a few reads. If you haven't done so, read any of the Soviet dissidents. They gave a clear picture of the ills of planned economies and the excesses of government control. If you think Capitalist greed is bad, it is nothing compared to the excesses of state run systems. Also read anything by Ayn Rand, "The Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole and the "almost" Libertarian bible: "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek. By the way, the Ayn Rand Institute has a performance space/lecture hall called the A. F. Hayek Auditorium. Ok, it's just a multi-purpose auditorium but performance space sounds sexier.

So my assignment to this student was to read some of these books over the summer and see if his question isn't answered. Let's see how deep the cerebral ossification has become due to educational propaganda.

FB

Lois Capps

Ok, I'm going to take a cheap shot here. Lois is unqualified to hold her office. She should be tossed out. Lois was assigned the position after her husband died in office and has since, won her own elections. She is from Santa Barbara County which is just slightly less liberal than San Francisco. The reasons? A huge student population and I mean huge. Students make up a large portion of residents by population percentage. Students almost always vote for the democratic candidate. If the current situation in South Carolina with Alvin Green, the amount of discernment shown by democrats and students in general gives a pretty good view of why she gets reelected.

At any rate, it's time to throw Lois out. She's got to go along with all the other "old school" democrats and liberals trying to turn America into Denmark.

FB

$20 Billion Extortion from Obama

Obama made a name as a community organizer. My experience with community organizers amounts to meeting people who went into corporations and businesses and using all kinds of tactics to get money from them to fund special interest projects. So nobody should be surprised when Obama comes up with a solution to the BP spill that requires BP creating some kind of slush fund that Obama appointees can use as they please.

Look, $20 Billion is a lot of money and this will not be the end of the issue. There will be other lawsuits also. This fund doesn't cover everything but is simply a political pay out so democratic party functionaries can use the money as they please to fund more special interests. Will the people who have lost businesses, business opportunities and have had business plans crushed by this spill every really be compensated for what they have lost? And, more importantly, how much of this fund will end up the target of a corruption investigation?

The whole process stinks. It's time for someone to start leading from the oval office. I want Obama to step up to the position and stop posturing. The presidency isn't a job one can train for. The person who is elected either steps up and starts leading (There will always be mistakes but as things work out, the mistakes lose importance as the positive acts take over. Clinton was such a president as was Truman. Nixon had a great chance and blew the whole thing as did Carter. Reagan used the power of the office as well as anyone.) or sits back and expects things to be great simply because that person is president.

What we have now is an incompetent who is the head of a party established around the goals of special interests only. The overriding concern about America is secondary to such inconsequential issues as homosexual marriage. In a way, we are lucky that Obama is incompetent; less will get done.

FB

If Only We Had This Much Hot Air to Provide Power

Lois Capps is our local congressman (congresswoman/person, ad nauseum) who periodically sends out newsletters informing her constituents of her activities. What these letters tell me is that we need term limits.

Back when our republic was founded, we elected representatives (the house) and the senate was appointed by states. The intent was that business people and average citizens would stop what they were doing and go serve the greater good for two years and then return to business. A lifetime of being in congress was not envisioned. The pay was low and it was really considered public service.

In our era, politics has become a career choice and if a person has the knack of winning elections, a quite good career could be had full of benefits that the elected person could vote for themselves. Both Madison and Jefferson wrote about this and -- in paraphrase: As soon as these people figure out that they can vote money and benefits for themselves, the whole system will collapse. Isn't this what has happened? It seems to me that we have let congress run rampant to pad their own futures.

So, here we have a newsletter, which I am sure is paid for by tax dollars, telling us about the glorious work Lois is doing on our behalf. What has she been doing? Why introducing legislation of course.

Here is the list of legislation and other things she has either sponsored or co-sponsored in her own words:

--I'm supporting legislation to retroactively get rid of the outdated $75 million oil company liability cap. . .

--I've introduced legislation to raise the civil and criminal penalties for polluters that violate environmental and safety law and regulations. (By the way, wasn't BP drilling in water 1 mile deep because environmental regulations would not allow them to drill in shallow water?)

--I called on BP to suspend its $30 million ad campaign promoting itself and to stop its plan to pay out up to $10 million in dividends. . . (Don't these dividends go to working people who have invested in BP stock? Aren't they also paid out to retirement funds, pension plans and other funds designed to secure individual's retirement?) I was pleased that BP heeded this request.

--I introduced legislation to establish an independent commission. Similar commissions were very useful in helping us learn from the TMI disaster and Challenger accident. (This is a total crock. The panels that examined both those incidents were not peopled by politicians but by industry professionals with the goal to come up with solutions to prevent future problems.) I was please when the President adopted my idea. . .

--I introduced legislation to give this commission subpoena power. (Obviously she has never read the lessons learned from the establishment of "people's committees" under the Soviets and the abuses caused and the lives destroyed.)

--Last month I wrote to BP urging it to take the necessary steps to insure the health and safety of the workers and volunteers cleaning up its giant mess. (Wha. . .? Thank you Lois. It's not like they haven't been pummeled from every quarter. I'm sure your letter turned the tide and they saw the light.)

The next two statements are so curious that I won't comment. But this is the kind of person we have representing us: She's totally clueless and driven by ideology.

--Still, reports of worker illness persist and it is clear BP is incapable of making the protection of the public’s health their priority. That’s why I am urging the President to relieve BP of their role in the public health response.

--My longtime opposition to offshore drilling is well known and the spill is just the most visible reminder of why. But I have also been pushing for a transition to a clean energy economy for years because our addiction to oil is a danger to our national security. We simply have to rely too much on countries hostile to us for our energy. (Lois, Lois, Lois. The reason we have to rely on enemies for oil is because environmentalists, who you openly support, have gone waaay overboard and have coerced legislators to draft legislation so restricting the oil industry that it's difficult to make any kind of profit from the stuff. Oh yeah, I know that national resources are considered "the peoples" but someone still must fund the exploration, discovery, drilling and implementation of a distribution system. The people you so avidly support think people like Chavez and other totalitarians have the answer. If that's the way you feel, you need to get some historical perspective. Ok. I wrote that I wouldn't comment but I found myself unable to resist.)

So here it comes, Lois writes that government wants to improve efficiency in our homes. This means more government employees, more laws, more fines and whole industries rising up in black market energy. It is the guarantee of Bill Clinton's promise to make "government your friend and partner in everything you do."

Who in America wants that? More importantly, is this what we want for our children?

FB

Obana's Oil speech, malaise, malaise, malaise!!!

Eighteen minutes of absolute dreck. The speech reminded me of a person who has not the foggiest idea of what to do. He simply doesn't know so he falls back on platitudes. For a guy who surrounds himself with anti-religious people, he calls on God to help us solve this problem. When do people call on God? When they have run out of options and have no idea of how to continue while still looking like they are doing something. He knows not.

This reminds me of Carter's malaise speech and it meandered and skirted real issues. Again, he doesn't know what to do. He is full of starts and has no finishes. He is out of touch with what works and how things, especially the energy industry, works.

I still can't figure out what this guy wants for the next generation other than inclusion into the mind and career killing type of socialism so prevalent in Europe.

This emperor has no clothes and can't even conjure up a good argument for nudity.

Isn't there a rational mind left in this administration? Apparently not.

FB

Obana is Incompetent and it's a good thing

When do press conferences, speeches and utterances from the white house count as leadership? The old adage that people who talk a lot about something do the least about the same thing seems to hold true. Let's take the mounting pressure by Islamic groups who use terror and other aspects of warfare to achieve their goals. We still don't have a cohesive plan to deal with this very real threat. We get sound bites and promises but no action. In the midwest, we have floods that are equal to the devastation of Katrina on New Orleans but spread out over smaller towns and a larger area and we get platitudes but no action. The BP oil spill is a disaster but what do we get from the president? Lots of speeches, pushes for draconian legislation that could lead to total government control of the energy businesses, blame passed around as freely as stimulus checks and nary a scant iota of real leadership. We get speeches, press conferences, a new energy czar, lots of blame and not a single leading act.

We have a president and an administration so involved with ideology that they are incapable of leading. A crisis is apolitical: the situations that Obama inherited are simply the situations. They weren't made worse by the prior administration even though the current one would have us believe so. The epithet "Bush/Cheney did. . . or was. . . " might fuel a bunch of democratic party slogan makers and people who have had their intellectual capacity so ossified that frozen oil moves faster but it does nothing to solve a problem.

I recently had a conversation with a person who believes everything he reads on the internet. The diatribes were flying and accusations ran rampant. Later that night, I heard democratic mouthpieces, white house spokespeople, congressmen and even the president echo these same sentiments. What in the world is going on?

After the "malaise" speech by Jimmy Carter (Another incompetent president.) people were actually hoping and wishing bad things for the country. We have the same situation today. People who have the destruction of America as a goal are treated seriously as if their opinion should be considered.

This can only happen when we have a void of leadership. Other countries are always going to be jealous of America's success because we are in competition. Chavez, Castro, Putin and others would love to see America fail just so they would feel better about their own lack of success in governing a country with growth potential on several levels. We have a president who honestly believes that the things that make America great are not an asset. He and his administration admire and emulate some of the worst dictators in history and pursue goals long shown to be chimera.

So Obama is incompetent and cannot lead or leads poorly. We should be happy in a way that he's not more effective. If he were, anti-American's would be changing our country much faster than they are currently trying to do. Please understand that we have elected a president who does not have the preservation of America and the success of the American system as his top priorities. Luckily he is incompetent and that gives us a window of opportunity to reestablish the goals of the founders and recapture the American spirit without "going back" to a dogma that is the domain of special interests.

FB

War On Drugs?

America has overused the war metaphor to the point that it has become meaningless. We have a war on poverty, obesity, crime, waste, disease, terror, ALS, cancer, graffiti, graft and gangs to name a few. If one were to simply follow a list generated by alphabetically adding a letter to "War on (A to Z) where each represents a letter, a whole list of "wars" can be obtained. What is the purpose of this other than to give the illusion that massive armies of do-good intended government agencies are looking out for the interest of the average person and are working, just as a soldier, to preserve a safe and secure life for each and every citizen.

What a crock. There is no real war on crime or waste. There isn't a war on cancer and wars on gangs are nothing more than the gang of police fighting the gang of some neighborhood organization dealing with distribution of some substance about which there is another war.

But I'm going to focus on the War on Drugs for a couple of reasons. First, it is a real war with deployment of military people to stop the manufacture and distribution of several types of drugs entering America by a number of means. (By the way, I have read most of the Iran/Contra hearing documents and can say that members of our government became drug traders to finance all kinds of operations. Do you wonder how this could have happened? Well, read the transcripts which are available on line and your eyes will open. Did you know that the cocaine and other drugs used in the operations to fund the contras were brought in through one major point? That point was the airport in Little Rock, AK. The governor at the time was one William Jefferson Clinton who interestingly enough became president of the US. Possibly he carried on the tradition of the person he was named after. Thomas Jefferson grew hemp on his plantation. Hemp was used for ropes of all kinds but were especially used by naval ships.) So we have government agents of different sorts bringing in drugs to America while Americans a being told that we are winning the War on Drugs. Well, winning may be correct. We got rid of foreign drug dealers so that our own dealers could reap the huge profits from the drug trade.

There are people who believe that all potential and real intoxicants should be controlled by the government. Even those who are for decriminalization want the government to control one or more of the substances and tax them as a source of revenue. Where in our constitution is this idea founded? Well, the commerce clause has been so widely interpreted that we have had many basically unconstitutional laws passed based on the commerce clause.

My position mirrors that of Sen. Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley. Both questioned the right of government to have any say or control over any drug of substance other than to guarantee safety and purity of product. In other words, if one were selling tincture of opium in a pharmacy, the government should ensure that the tincture was really opium. For other drugs, things are somewhat different.

Marijuana is a plant that can be grown by anyone. It has psychotropic effects and, as an intoxicant, is quite safe. Of course, long term or chronic use can lead to medical problems just like tobacco but one must remember that a cigarette is not a pure tobacco product. All kinds of things are added to the product to make it "taste" better and to increase addiction.

I could go through the moralistic arguments ad nauseum. Every religion has restrictions against self intoxication but none are more logical than the others. So I am going to simply ignore them and deal with the nature of living on planet earth.

We live on the planet under any of a number of different political systems. Each of these systems is designed to control behavior. The only real exception is America where the overriding document is one which protects citizens from government excesses. While this document has been perverted into something almost unrecognizable today, the intent was clear: government should be controlled, not the people living under that system. Too bad we have forgotten this.

Outside of legal issues and enacted laws, there is nothing that states that the government can control what a person ingests. In simple terms, the constitution never mentioned it. So if you want to imbibe, you can but you may suffer from being ostracized if you drink too much. But there was no inherent meaning or intent of the founding fathers to give government control over substances of intoxication. The Eighteenth Amendment was basically unconstitutional because it represent a sumptuary law. Sumptuary laws are those which seek to control the ingestion of substances. Examples of these are alcohol restriction on Sundays in certain states in the South known as the Bible belt, bars closing at certain hours, prohibition (This was not only tried in America but in many other countries including Canada, Russia, England and others. Today, alcohol is totally banned in many countries that follow Islamic law.) and laws covering other drugs. But there is nothing inherent in life, living, aging or dying which states or implies in an a priori way that drugs are bad and should be controlled.

The constitution does not indicate that drugs should be controlled any more than it suggest that guns should be controlled. We are living under a government imposed prohibition based on a set of assumptions that have no reality. We know that prohibitions lead to law breaking and we know that excessive taxation to control usage leads to tax evasion. Our republic has become no better than the most stringent Islamic state in the numbers of laws passed and the enforcement of drug usage. We have been lied to about the "potential" effects of letting people be free and instead have learned to live under a system of repression based on drug ingestion that is as draconian as anything Stalin could have dreamed up.

We are either free or we are not. In the case of drugs, we are not free and we have come to live under this lie as if it is freedom.

FB

Are You Confused? Lies, cynicism, and ridicule as news.

You know with all the lies, misrepresentations and obfuscation about almost everything, I have to say that I'm confused. CNN and MSNBC are so biased that I can't rely on anything they broadcast. It wasn't always this way. Some years back Peter Arnet and April Oliver ran a piece called "Operation Tailwind" about US Army Special Forces soldiers who had killed American POWs held by the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong. The report seemed well investigated and they even had interviews with Air Force pilots and Special Forces Soldiers who supposedly carried out these nefarious acts.

I'm watching the special and here are some people who I happen to have met and knew. In the time periods referred to, they were nowhere near anything that resembled the types of operations indicated in the special. I wrote CNN and actually had some email correspondence with April but by that time she was so defensive that getting any kind of coherent story from her was akin to pulling teeth from a chicken. So my estimation of the veracity of CNN "news" sank like the Dow on a bad day. By the way, both Oliver and Arnett lost jobs over the flap about that piece. Arnett made a name with his reporting from Baghdad. But since then he had gone on to take typically anti-American positions in his reportage. That's strange. Risk a career for ideology.

Over on MSNBC Keith Olbermann, some clown with a show called "The Ed Show" (And that's what it is: A show. There is as little relation to facts as the "Operation Tailwind" piece.) and the sage of sages, Rachal Maddow who I remember from Air America broadcasts. Her pieces were so anti-Bush, republican and anything right of Lenin that they actually made the point they were trying to refute. It was good listening but only because it was so thoughtless and comical. But the problem is that on these stations, there's no news. Facts are simply a foil for propaganda. One wonders what their objective could be?

Out on cable/satellite there is a channel called Current. It's youth oriented, mostly liberal but thoughtful. It's funded by Al Gore and other usual suspects. On that channel is a show called "Vanguard." This show sends reporters around the world to investigate how people are living under other systems. The show was obviously meant to show the success of Communist, Socialist systems and how everyone was the same in the world. But a strange thing happened. While they are filming, it became apparent that any comparison to opportunity and development in America was impossible. What the show does is to show just how good Americans have it. For example: Yes, China has an expanding economy but the average citizen is still politically controlled and political speech still lands one in jail. Pollution is rampant and a lot of people are getting sick and dying from the pollution. Building standards do not exist and they fall down quite regularly. They are running out of water. Outside of the enterprise zones, poverty is rampant. Homelessness abounds and in the final analysis, it's still a police state: Travel is restricted or not allowed. So here's a station with a liberal broadcast perspective and experimenting with new broadcast formats that ends up being a poster child for the very things they rail against. This is the station of Laura Ling who is a vanguard video journalist. Her most famous work? Being arrested by North Korea for violating their border. Ain't Communism great? Her report on illegal "immigrants" (Look, they're invaders and should be treated as such.) was a condemnation of American policy. One wonders how she feels after a three-month stay as a guest of North Korea. Yes, it's confusing.

Over on cable/Sat. FOX, we supposedly have "Fair and Balanced." What a crock. So they have some republican mouthpiece debating some democrat mouthpiece. Let me ask: Do you really care? Is this supposed to be interesting? Note to FOX: The format is trite and the people you have commenting are no better than rehearsed simpletons. We know what they are going to say and it doesn't matter the subject. One gives the democratic party view and one the republican. What we need are people who think differently and can offer some insight not based on the tenets of fixed megaliths like the democratic and republican parties. So alter this format and dump anyone who wants to issue an opinion. Change the format to scholars and non-party affiliated people. If the news item is about the parties, then it's OK but the format is WAAAAAY overused. Now interesting, while some broadcasters are certainly right leaning, they are less dogmatic and less rigid than almost anyone on CNN or MSNBC or any of the original three: ABC, NBC, CBS. It doesn't mean they are right but that they appear less dogmatic.

Also: When did it become acceptable to spend valuable broadcast time talking about another station? Is there such a dearth of news that can't be manipulated into a democratic view that broadcasters can spend time lambasting competitors? Do they really think this is journalism? Who spends any real time watching this claptrap of misguided ad hominem. What does any of the broadcasters and their beliefs have to do with the veracity of any news item? And when does coy, snide smirking designed to slant perspective pass as acceptable on a newscast? It's confusing indeed.

We have so much confusion that it's almost impossible to cul facts from all the BS. One thing that should be done is to get rid of party mouthpieces about everything. Report the news without commentary of any kind. When identifying personalities, leave off party affiliation. Even if they are governors, senators or other politicians, there's no need to identify them by party. What should be done is to list the expertise these people bring to the subject area they are talking about. I will tell you something: A congressman does not have expertise because he/she sits on a committee for any time period. At best, they know about budgets and allocations but they never talk about budgets or how they are grafting the system. No, they want to talk about policy about which they obviously know nothing.

Now you're probably asking how do I know this. It's easy: Just look at our schizophrenic foreign and domestic policy. Nobody knows what's going on. The people we elect to lead us are more interested in getting themselves reelected to waste valuable time actually fixing problems. They can't fix problems because our elected officials know less about them than the average bar patron. The news is right in line with this confusion and they live and feed off of such. They do everything they can to further confusion because as much as each anchor, host or commentator tries to appear knowledgeable, they don't know any more than the average person and somewhat less that a college professor focusing on the item area.

If one wants facts, stick to local news when they report about local occurrences. The news is great for traffic jams, robberies and local construction projects

So are you confused? You probably are and that's the way the people who make fabulous salaries giving you the news want you to be. That way they can continue to "inform" you with more lies, more misstatements and more obfuscation.

What is factual about the BP spill: Who can we blame. Who can we skewer. Who can we raise to the level of God?

We all know that a deep water oil rig suffered a blow out. Safety equipment on the rig failed. Several people died. Down at the bottom of the ocean, a pipe was blown apart in such a way that emergency shut off equipment couldn't function to stem the flow or oil. Oil has been spewing out of the ocean floor at a rate estimated to be between nineteen thousand to two-hundred thousand gallons per day. Several attempts to stop the oil have failed due to a number of reasons. It is speculated that the well might not be capped until November and the environmental damage estimates and economic damage estimates are rising daily.

All in all, a bad situation. Along side of all the real problems are a host of bloggers, so-called reporters, activists, environmental radicals. anti-capitalists, anti-oil, pro-oil and pro-capitalists logging onto the internet with accusations of all kinds of nefarious plots designed to slant opinion towards a particular point of view. It should be mentioned that none of the fire-bomb throwers offers anything like a solution but plenty of them offer endless prose about how evil and inhuman PB executives are because they are destroying "our" gulf. What a crock. First it's our gulf then our ocean then our planet. Maybe in a very limited tribal sense, we only inhabit for a brief time and nobody really owns anything.

Long ago, rights of ownership were determined. It's basically: If you can get something, hold onto it and make it prosper and defend it, It was yours. (By the way, even tribes follow this rule: Defend your village against usurpers and you can keep your village and hunting grounds. Lose the fight and your tribe faces endless nomadic treks to find another place to live.) Cries by certain people that BP isn't "us" somehow obfuscates the situation. These same people, who decry the oil industry, also drive, live in houses and shop at stores. All are dependent on oil. There are people who think that we should only use alternative, non-polluting sources of energy. I hate to bust bubbles but even wind turbines require oil and silicon-base photovoltaic batteries also require oil in many phases of transportation and distribution. So regardless of how earth-friendly one might be, oil is a fact of life. As the population expands, oil will play a more important role. Even is a hydrogen-based engine could reduce oil used by a drastic amount, phasing in such a system worldwide will take fifty years or more. That doesn't even consider getting rid of all the existing technology and infrastructure built around oil derivitive transportation. Many people think we should use vegetables oils for transportation. Well, a gallon of cheap olive oil costs around twenty to thirty dollars. Compare that to the three to four dollars for a gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel. Also, olive oil is a food source. I can't think of a worse idea than competing for food sources to determine whether we eat or drive. It's insane.

Is BP at fault? One would have to say yes. It was their job to oversee anyone they subcontract to carry out the operation of any component so it operates within established safety guidelines. But as with the waste treatment industry, there are situations where current regulations are not enforced based on a number of criteria. Every once in a while, this behavior backfires and problems happen. In waste sewage, it's spills. In the oil drilling industry it's blow outs. However, if one looks at the numbers of active wells in the gulf alone, the safety record is stellar. So why now the condemnation of the whole industry?

I blame it on the press and the ability of the press to raise hysteria to panic and the government. First, let's look at the EPA. Environmentalists have been working for years to eliminate shallow water (Under 500 feet.) drilling. But they were OK with deep water drilling. Before this blow out, one could say that the decision seemed sound. But just as in waste treatment, they allowed older wells to bypass new safety upgrades based on costs and difficulty of execution. After all, it's one thing to fix something 500 feet below the surface and quite another to fix something one mile below the surface. So politically motivated government organizations like the EPA (Make no mistake about it, the EPA is almost entirely motivated by politics. While many of the scientists are after real solutions, the general mandate changes from administration to administration and often mandates are issued based on faulty or misleading data.)

There have been accusations the BP has thwarted much of the cleanup. Could this be true? What could be the motivation of BP to hinder any kind of cleanup? They already have a bad rep from the management of the platform and the blow out and strange as it may seem, they are more of a problem than part of the solution. That have gotten in the way of many proposals and plans to clean up the shore and also to prevent oil landing on the shore. BP has actively worked to suppress photos and access to the damaged areas. The fisherman who have been hired by BP aren't talking because they want what little money they get from BP to keep flowing. However, there are intrepid souls who risk penalties and firing from their temporary employers to let the facts speak for themselves. To this end, several have taken established reporters out to areas where damage has occurred.

To speak of idiocy and self-destructive behavior, BP has to take the cake. Whoever is running their operation should be criminally charged with malfeasance and whoever drafted this coverup plan should be fired and jailed for something so anti-public. Sure they want to minimize potential law suits but there is no minimizing this mess and the sooner BP stops wasting energy, the sooner rational minds can find solutions that will work.

Here's a warning to BP: Get your act together on behalf of the people who need the gulf as much as you. Press and public sentiment outside of the bomb throwing crazies that inhabit most of the net are turning on you. If you think the blow out is bad, the blow up over your behavior will make the spill look like kittens play.

How about the press? Egad. Need I say more. The press has never seen an occurrance they couldn't turn into a crisis, a crisis into a disaster and a disaster into an apocalypse. It's hard to see the press as anything but sensational craving vampires looking for victims to elevate into national heroes.

So what can be done? We can't trust the administration because they have an agenda. We can't trust the press because they exaggerate everything. We can't trust BP because they underplay everything. So where do we go? I would suggest we let local government set the criteria for everything in their domain and the federal government assist them. BP pays for it all regardless of who fronts the money. If the government puts out funds, BP reimburses. We use a bunch of different approaches in the beginning and refine those that work the best. Obviously, not every approach works for every situation. What's good for the ocean probably won't work in a wetland. What works on a beach will not work in a swamp. So a lot of different approaches must be tried.

In the end, we must be careful about anyone who has an agenda in regards to this accident. Extreme environmental activists must be approached with caution because their end result is predetermined which influences what and what isn't acceptable. It's an old and sad adage that politics is the ultimate game. Unfortunately, when looked at with that perspective, politics loses power and it has been the goal of the press, government and politicians to elevate politics above everything else. This is bad for every American because over time, less and less can be accomplished as simple activities become the focus of political struggle.

FB

What do you believe? Truth vs the misuse of fact.

Belief is a strange thing. I mentioned Korzybski in another post and went back and reread parts of "Science and Sanity." What a concept, science and sanity. I have posited the following question to myself and to others: "Have you ever believed something to be factual and true only to find out that what you believed is/was completely false?"

Before you go off on a tangent, the statement is not religiously oriented. There is no way to prove what we can barely understand which is the state of belief in higher powers, Gods and religious systems. On a personal level, one can have an experience that absolutely is factual and true for that person yet the experience cannot be communicated to anyone else in a way that they can determine the veracity of the experience. Richard Bucke wrote "Cosmic Consciousness" as a guide to various types of experience that, like Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" attempted to explain the difficulty of explaining consciousness expanding experience to anyone else. So my question had nothing to do with religion. My statement was politically oriented but at the time, I didn't phrase it that way in part because I didn't want to bias answers.

I have asked the question many times to many people and have had few satisfactory answers. Under the Bush presidency, I got a lot of people who intimated that Bush lied about WMDs and the war in Iraq in general. But since these people were predisposed to dislike Bush 43, it would be hard to believe (no pun) that they found anything he said to be truthful anyway.

So I refined the question as I was met with blank looks. I had to ask specific questions and limit the scope of the answer to get any response. For example, I asked, "Do you think the average American is more free than citizens of other countries.?"

Most people simply said yes. So I indicated things you could do in other countries that you couldn't do here. I mentioned the very liberal drug laws in Holland (The EU hadn't formed yet.) and the Artistic freedom in both Japan, South America and Europe. But most didn't know anything about art. Virtually all knew about drug laws and had strong opinions regardless of whether they knew facts or not. Yes, opinions abounded concerning drugs. Drugs were either good or bad depending on whether the person used or didn't use drugs in some way. So I asked the drug question in two parts: "Should drugs be regulated at all?" and "Do governments have a responsibility to regulate drugs the government considers harmful."

In this situation, I got a majority of answers over the years but all centered around the premise that some drugs should be legalized and taxed (The European model.) and others should still be illegal. A few said that all drugs should be controlled and distributed/taxed by the government. What is interesting about this is that virtually everyone said that government should control drugs. Americans want government to control drugs and other things they considered harmful in some way. Then I wondered what had happened to thinking where literally everyone wanted government to do something. If one looks at something like abortion, both the pro-abortion and anti-abortion people want government to adopt their position. But does government have a place in regulating something like abortion? If I asked that question, everyone said yes.

So the belief question came to what people believed government should and shouldn't do. In all my years of asking this question, I only had two people state that government should not get involved in anything people do on a personal basis except to control people who try and stop people doing what they want. The exception were activities like murder, theft or anything else that involved another person.

I asked people what happened when they found that something they believe true turns out to be false. One example was in advertising. But most people think that ads are deceiving anyway. Currently I hear people restate what they have heard on the news and what they state directly effects which news shows they watch. It's kind of like listening to people's speech styles to figure out which sitcoms they currently watch. Sarah Palin was tagged with a statement that she could see Russia from her house. She never made the statement but Tina Fey from Saturday Night Live did. The numbers of people who echoed the Fey line and attributed it to Palin was astounding. Here are people making evaluations of a political candidate quite willing to accept something as true that had no foundation in truth at all. People believed the statement was true even when shown the Fey clip.

Back in the day when Marshall McCluhan's "The Medium is the Message" ruled media thinking, people were gaining a small glimpse of just how much of our opinion is based on either the misuse of facts or the distortion of facts to create untruth from truth. But how does one figure this out? People are working far too hard and have far too little leisure time to really investigate what they are told by any number of sources. To use actual statements from people is almost impossible unless one follows everything a person says. Besides, this may be more misleading than one would think.

I knew a HS student taking one of the HS AP History Classes to get college credit for work done in HS. I happen to have an extensive library about history and historical figures. So I loaned actual writings of people he was studying. He used these books and failed his assignments. He failed because the teacher wanted specific sets of responses based on how he was teaching the concepts. In other words, something like Jacksonian Democracy was learned a specific way and anything that Jackson or his detractors wrote was immaterial to the way that part of history was being taught in the class. Ok, the study of history is really the interpretation of facts to fit an ideology but actual statement from the person being incorrect over an ideology seems like a stretch to me.

So is what you believe based on a self-supporting ideological system designed to control your thinking or based on self-discovered facts?

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