Given that there are billions of stars in a galaxy, and that there are billions of galaxies in the universe, it is highly likely there is other intelligent life in the universe, and that this intelligence is much greater, more ancient and experienced than our own (probably god-like to us). It is less probable, although quite possible, that this super intelligence exists within our galaxy. If they exist in our galaxy, they probably know about us but don't care what we do, or know about us and observe, or know about us and control or at least influence developments on earth. So there is some small chance that the aliens are among us. It is this small possibility that I find interesting to think about. So there may be numerous, or a few super intelligent collections of beings in our galaxy. They are probably at least aware of us. What must we seem like to them ? Like ants at a picnic - a nuisance, but we don't eat much. As interesting wildlife to observe ? As an experiment to tweak and study ? Probably not as a source of protein, since the herd has not been thinned.
If there is superintelligent life and if they are capable of spanning interstellar distance, and if they are interested in more primitive intelligent life, and that's a lot of ifs, then they may well have visited at least once, possibly numerous times, and may even be here now. In any case, if they have been or are here now, they have chosen not to make themselves known publicly. If they choose to act, they would likely choose to influence events and outcomes rather than overtly dictate. Much like NFL referees, they do not play the game, but profoundly influence the outcome. In fact, perhaps NFL referees are indeed aliens. Their actions certainly seem unpredictable to us, and not based on earthly logic. Now just think about it for a minute. They supposedly have real day jobs that still allow them ample time to prepare for and travel to and from games. They don't get paid for doing a remarkably unattractive job that requires a state police escort to ensure their safety. And physically, how in the world can these fat, old guys race down the sideline almost step for step with a pro receiver ? How do they have the stamina to do this for an entire game ? The answer, of course, is that they are not of this world. (Twilight Zone theme plays softly in the background).
There must be others of the off-world persuasion as well. Think what type of person stays almost invisibly in the background, prefers anonymity, does not receive awards or public recognition, in fact they often conceal their activities and influence even when they operate in the very center of power, but nevertheless command the ability to make or break critical decisions. Lobbyists come to mind. Lobbyists are blessed with a distinct lack of human conscience or sense of ethics. Lobbyists always seem to be well funded, and operate very effectively at the behest of shadowy organizations with obscure objectives. They effectively write the legislation that Congress enacts, and determine which rules and regulations are enforced, and which ones are not. As another authoritative resource, lets ask Dick Cheney about aliens among us. If anybody knows, he does.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Jerry Jones is the second coming of Al Davis
Listen, Jerry Jones should himself take over as head coach of the feckless Dallas Cowboys football team. There is only one other NFL owner who comes close to Jerry in team management expertise, and that is Al Davis. Also, recall that Al was actually the head coach and offensive coordinator of the Raiders for several years (and compiled a winning record). Jerry has done so well as GM that he should now hand that function off to someone else who could continue his fine performance, someone like Matt Millen - I hear he is available. Then Jerry could try his hand as head coach - it is the only viable alternative. He could even keep Wade around, since he has to pay him anyway; maybe put him in charge of post-game apologies and team refreshments. I'm certain Jerry is just as mentally competent as Al Davis, and Al has done it all - owner, GM, and coach. Why should Jerry let Al outshine him in such fashion. This arrangement would have truly great entertainment value, and would be no worse than the current snafu. Jerry may make a great coach, who knows ?
Friday, October 15, 2010
Up against the wall dickwads !
I just abandoned a book called The Extinction Event, by David Black.
Here's what I thought of it:
The writer, editor, publisher and anyone else associated with this wanna-be novel should be pelted with rotten tomatoes. Either the author has been smitten with senility and the other culprits are giving him a pass, or this was written as a comic book and someone forgot to include the artwork. In any case it is a fraud, and if I had bought it instead of borrowing from the library, I would be insisting on my money back. Specifically, the characters in this travesty are one dimensional caricatures, and the plot is some stream-of-consciousness, ever-diverging departure from reality. The dialog is lifted directly from the Big Book of Cliches to Avoid, and the whole mess is punctuated by tedious descriptive narrative that adds nothing to the story, but must be intended merely to take up white space. This drivel is what I would expect from a vapid high school sophomore trying to write in the style of Mickey Spillane. This is the worst book I have ever attempted to read, and I admit I gave up a quarter of the way through, and just spot checked a page here and there after page 57, expecting it just had to get better, but it did not. Instead it just gets painfully worse and more improbably chaotic, and inspired me to write this review. Save your money. Wait for the comic book to come out.
Here's what I thought of it:
The writer, editor, publisher and anyone else associated with this wanna-be novel should be pelted with rotten tomatoes. Either the author has been smitten with senility and the other culprits are giving him a pass, or this was written as a comic book and someone forgot to include the artwork. In any case it is a fraud, and if I had bought it instead of borrowing from the library, I would be insisting on my money back. Specifically, the characters in this travesty are one dimensional caricatures, and the plot is some stream-of-consciousness, ever-diverging departure from reality. The dialog is lifted directly from the Big Book of Cliches to Avoid, and the whole mess is punctuated by tedious descriptive narrative that adds nothing to the story, but must be intended merely to take up white space. This drivel is what I would expect from a vapid high school sophomore trying to write in the style of Mickey Spillane. This is the worst book I have ever attempted to read, and I admit I gave up a quarter of the way through, and just spot checked a page here and there after page 57, expecting it just had to get better, but it did not. Instead it just gets painfully worse and more improbably chaotic, and inspired me to write this review. Save your money. Wait for the comic book to come out.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Corporate Sludge Dumping
We have lived in rural, agricultural areas for more than forty years, in Texas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. We never encountered farmers desecrating their land with sewage until it happened in our area of Shrewsbury Township beginning in 2007. Sewage sludge has poisoned the wells of surrounding land-owners, caused illness and bacterial infection among nearby residents, reduced property values, and taken from people the normal use and enjoyment of their homes. Unless you have experienced nearby sludge dumping, you cannot possibly know how bad it is. The DEP calls sludge application a normal farming practice. It is not. The Attorney General, taking the side of the polluters, strikes down any attempt by local governments to protect their citizens from the dangerous results of sludge dumping. The current situation is intolerable, and citizens will continue to oppose the collusion between politicians and corporate interests that allow violation of our rights.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Let the bastards fail
The Congress should not use taxpayer dollars to bail out Wall Street.
This bill does nothing to fix the root causes of the current problem. The bank liquidity crisis is caused by a decade of lack of effective regulation and oversight in the banking, mortgage, and securities markets. Rampant deregulation and lax enforcement has allowed greedy and even criminal speculators to profit from unsound and deceitful business practices.
The current Senate proposal uses taxpayer dollar bills to cover up the problems temporarily. This is like using paper dollars to smother a bonfire. It may block the flames for a short while, but will eventually be fuel for an inferno.
The notion that taxpayers will profit from the 700 Billion dollar “investment” into worthless Mortgage-backed securities is as ludicrous as the claim that the Iraq war would pay for itself.
This bill is a bad law. Let the market work to kill off incompetent bankers and speculators. We will endure the tough times ahead and emerge a stronger economy without the incompetent gamblers the bailout would preserve and cause to prosper at taxpayer expense.
This bill does nothing to fix the root causes of the current problem. The bank liquidity crisis is caused by a decade of lack of effective regulation and oversight in the banking, mortgage, and securities markets. Rampant deregulation and lax enforcement has allowed greedy and even criminal speculators to profit from unsound and deceitful business practices.
The current Senate proposal uses taxpayer dollar bills to cover up the problems temporarily. This is like using paper dollars to smother a bonfire. It may block the flames for a short while, but will eventually be fuel for an inferno.
The notion that taxpayers will profit from the 700 Billion dollar “investment” into worthless Mortgage-backed securities is as ludicrous as the claim that the Iraq war would pay for itself.
This bill is a bad law. Let the market work to kill off incompetent bankers and speculators. We will endure the tough times ahead and emerge a stronger economy without the incompetent gamblers the bailout would preserve and cause to prosper at taxpayer expense.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Bailout Mistake
There may be a few problems with the proposed taxpayer bailout of the equity markets.
Aside from the immorality of rewarding already rich Wall Street weasels for their malfeasance in bringing the economy to ruin, the prospect of a taxpayer bailout only postpones the problem, and saddles the next administration with a huge debt and the prospect of continuing to prop up a fragile economy led by insolvent financial services giants.
If the intent of the bailout is to restore investor confidence in the market, as stated by the Secretary of the Treasury, then it has already failed. Investors are evacuating from the market like from a burning building, and are not likely to return soon. After the current debacle, the equity markets will not likely recover for many years if ever.
Indeed, the equity markets may never return to past levels, because the bailout sets a precedent of government intervention in equity markets that completely changes the economic principles of the markets. The precedent shifts risk from investors to taxpayers. Once that precedent is established, who knows what new investment dynamics will apply? Marx and Lenin would be saying “I told you so.”
The gutless Congress, with an eye on elections in a few weeks, will bluster and posture for the cameras, but will eventually roll over and agree to the bailout to avoid blame for the eventual and unavoidable economic crash.
A hasty bailout extends the legacy and flawed philosophies of the current presidency into the next administration. The needless rescue inflates the federal deficit to the point that the incoming administration will have very little opportunity to make significant change. The additional 700 billion will be borrowed from mostly foreign sources at unavoidably higher interest rates. The huge deficit and interest payments will cause the value of the dollar to further decline, thus increasing inflation as the cost of oil and other imports increases in lock step.
In the Senate hearings yesterday, the spokesmen for the Executive branch reminded me of snake oil salesmen, whose basic pitch was “give us the money, or bad things will happen”. They have a concept. They have no plan, no strategy, no tactics, and few specific actions they are willing to share in public. They offered only vague ideas of how the bailout funds would be spent. The administration has already authorized $300 Billion for the bailouts of Wall Street investment bankers and AIG. Now the request is for another $700 Billion, with no end in sight. Put in perspective, the cost of the six year Iraq war is $560 Billion.
This vague approach is not surprising, since this administration generally has a shoot-from-the-hip approach to major issues. They just seem to careen from disaster to catastrophe without learning that preparation, planning, and follow up are necessary for any major activity.
Remember some of the high points of this presidency:
“We know where the weapons of mass destruction are located.”
“The war will pay for itself.”
“Mission Accomplished”
“Good Job Brownie.”
“The Economy is strong (last month)”
We, the taxpayers, are in for tough times ahead, regardless of what the economic “experts” predict. The bailout does not fix Wall Street. It will only slow down the probable crash past the next election. At best, we can hope for a long and deep recession with a lot of belt-tightening all around.
We should just take our lumps now and let the markets sort things out. Congress should not saddle taxpayers with a huge additional debt. Let the incompetent and greedy financial companies fail. Let those responsible for bad loans fail, both lenders and borrowers. Let the Congress establish adequate regulation in the wake of the wreck. Wall Street and Main Street will survive, and will go on, poorer and wiser, but ready to rebuild.
Thankfully, there is an election soon, which affords the only glimmer of optimism in the shambles that the current bunch of incompetents has left us.
Aside from the immorality of rewarding already rich Wall Street weasels for their malfeasance in bringing the economy to ruin, the prospect of a taxpayer bailout only postpones the problem, and saddles the next administration with a huge debt and the prospect of continuing to prop up a fragile economy led by insolvent financial services giants.
If the intent of the bailout is to restore investor confidence in the market, as stated by the Secretary of the Treasury, then it has already failed. Investors are evacuating from the market like from a burning building, and are not likely to return soon. After the current debacle, the equity markets will not likely recover for many years if ever.
Indeed, the equity markets may never return to past levels, because the bailout sets a precedent of government intervention in equity markets that completely changes the economic principles of the markets. The precedent shifts risk from investors to taxpayers. Once that precedent is established, who knows what new investment dynamics will apply? Marx and Lenin would be saying “I told you so.”
The gutless Congress, with an eye on elections in a few weeks, will bluster and posture for the cameras, but will eventually roll over and agree to the bailout to avoid blame for the eventual and unavoidable economic crash.
A hasty bailout extends the legacy and flawed philosophies of the current presidency into the next administration. The needless rescue inflates the federal deficit to the point that the incoming administration will have very little opportunity to make significant change. The additional 700 billion will be borrowed from mostly foreign sources at unavoidably higher interest rates. The huge deficit and interest payments will cause the value of the dollar to further decline, thus increasing inflation as the cost of oil and other imports increases in lock step.
In the Senate hearings yesterday, the spokesmen for the Executive branch reminded me of snake oil salesmen, whose basic pitch was “give us the money, or bad things will happen”. They have a concept. They have no plan, no strategy, no tactics, and few specific actions they are willing to share in public. They offered only vague ideas of how the bailout funds would be spent. The administration has already authorized $300 Billion for the bailouts of Wall Street investment bankers and AIG. Now the request is for another $700 Billion, with no end in sight. Put in perspective, the cost of the six year Iraq war is $560 Billion.
This vague approach is not surprising, since this administration generally has a shoot-from-the-hip approach to major issues. They just seem to careen from disaster to catastrophe without learning that preparation, planning, and follow up are necessary for any major activity.
Remember some of the high points of this presidency:
“We know where the weapons of mass destruction are located.”
“The war will pay for itself.”
“Mission Accomplished”
“Good Job Brownie.”
“The Economy is strong (last month)”
We, the taxpayers, are in for tough times ahead, regardless of what the economic “experts” predict. The bailout does not fix Wall Street. It will only slow down the probable crash past the next election. At best, we can hope for a long and deep recession with a lot of belt-tightening all around.
We should just take our lumps now and let the markets sort things out. Congress should not saddle taxpayers with a huge additional debt. Let the incompetent and greedy financial companies fail. Let those responsible for bad loans fail, both lenders and borrowers. Let the Congress establish adequate regulation in the wake of the wreck. Wall Street and Main Street will survive, and will go on, poorer and wiser, but ready to rebuild.
Thankfully, there is an election soon, which affords the only glimmer of optimism in the shambles that the current bunch of incompetents has left us.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Bush is such a tool
Words cannot express my sense of powerless rage at what George Bush and friends have done to my country. He has a true genius for destruction.
"An aide to the prime minister of Canada called President Bush a moron. Well that's not fair. Here's a guy who never worked a day in his life, got rich off his Dad's money, lost the popular vote and ended up president. That's not a moron, that's genius!" —Jay Leno
"An aide to the prime minister of Canada called President Bush a moron. Well that's not fair. Here's a guy who never worked a day in his life, got rich off his Dad's money, lost the popular vote and ended up president. That's not a moron, that's genius!" —Jay Leno
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