Today is the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
For me, today is a day of silence. Those of us who were alive and old enough to remember may choose to mark this day in our own ways.
Have a peaceful weekend.
Ever feel like you’re waiting…
…for the other shoe to drop?
I’ve been feeling like that for months.
It feels like being a kid waiting for your Father to get home to beat your ass for doing something you shouldn’t have done.
I suppose a more polite way of saying that would be a reference to the sword of Damocles. (If you don’t get that one look it up.) Perhaps a reference to Poe’s Pit & Pendulum would work better?
To be sure, this summer has been a pain in my ass personally. But it’s also been a mess nationally and internationally.
Hurricanes, Floods, Continuing and mutating pandemic, The show trials over the Jan 6th (mostly peaceful protests, hey they didn’t burn the capital down. Just sayin.), Afghanistan (Now we know why Biden has kids, he didn’t know how to withdraw… I couldn’t resist,) Poor economy, Rising Prices, etc. etc. etc.
Tuesday morning there was a report in Breitbart where an epidemiologist reviewed grants associated with St Fauci of the mask, and concluded that in fact some 600K did fund “Gain of function” research in Wuhan. The material was released under the FOIA.
Technically, this information is a smoking gun. Fauci broke the law. Federally, gain of function research is forbidden.
It’s possible, Fauci may have skirted the law, by approving grant money. Then Fauci lied to Congress about it, denying that any funding went to Wuhan for such research. He’d have been better off simply admitting that without his knowledge, the funds were misused and that the grant had been terminated.
Fauci has always been about gain of function research throughout his career.
On the one hand I can kinda see it from the standpoint of learning what may happen, and then doing the research to have countermeasures in place. On the other hand, I think I agree more with folks who say that gain of function is simply too dangerous. If COVID-19 is any indicator, I’d say that we have proof of the latter point.
I hate like hell that I believe Fauci will skate on all of this. I no longer have faith that our Justice system is remotely impartial. It’s been made very clear if you’re a darling of the administration (or a family member) there are no consequences. If, on the other hand you’ve demonstrated any opposition to the administration you’re going to be hunted down like a rabid dog.
Yet, with all this, it still feels like I’m in the corner of my bedroom waiting for Dad to come home. “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you son…” I knew that was bullshit at 8 years old, it’s no less bullshit now.
In fact my Dad and I had a good healthy laugh over that particular comment as adults sipping scotch. I told him I called bullshit, and he just laughed.
“Yep Son, it was bullshit, but your ass was such a small moving target I’d end up with strap marks on my legs too. You’ve got to nonetheless, concede that you’re the man I’m proud of today in part because of me busting your butt.“
He was right. I admitted it to him right then and there. We poured another drink and talked about all kinds of things as Men, not father and son.
God, how I’d enjoy talking with him now! If only to hear his take on why I’m feeling like I’m waiting for doom.
Thinking about that conversation though, still puts a smile on my face. The hangover the next day was even worth it.
I just wish I could get past this feeling…
As we come up on the 20th anniversary of September 11, I find myself wondering if that’s the thing. Perhaps it’s just that it’s been 20 years.
I’m sure Biden will attempt to make some speech. Sadly, no matter how well written that speech will be, if he goes off the rails, or if some jackasses shoot up a crowd or set off a bomb to mark the date, I wonder if that could simply be the flashpoint of what’s bugging me.
There are just so many division points between so many groups in America today. Those points are in my mind metaphorical powder kegs. Half the country seems to be violently opposed to the other half of the country for one reason or another. Is what I’m feeling a subconscious recognition of how angry, stressed, and ready to blow, we as a people are?
Or is this feeling simply a sign of my frustration at the job search and my worry over paying my bills?
I’ll admit I think we should flatten Afghanistan with carpet bombing.
I’d love to see this administration and much of Congress on trial for corruption and wrongdoing. But I’m not ready to join a militia, white supremacist group, or do anything that is outside of the laws that we’re all supposed to abide by. I keep hearing my Mother, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.“
I keep hearing in the back of my mind, “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen. Although I like the rendition by Sigrid better than the original.
"Everybody Knows" Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows that the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That's how it goes Everybody knows Everybody knows that the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died Everybody talking to their pockets Everybody wants a box of chocolates And a long stem rose Everybody knows Everybody knows that you love me baby Everybody knows that you really do Everybody knows that you've been faithful Ah give or take a night or two Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just had to meet Without your clothes And everybody knows Everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows Everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows And everybody knows that it's now or never Everybody knows that it's me or you And everybody knows that you live forever Ah when you've done a line or two Everybody knows the deal is rotten Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton For your ribbons and bows And everybody knows And everybody knows that the Plague is coming Everybody knows that it's moving fast Everybody knows that the naked man and woman Are just a shining artifact of the past Everybody knows the scene is dead But there's gonna be a meter on your bed That will disclose What everybody knows And everybody knows that you're in trouble Everybody knows what you've been through From the bloody cross on top of Calvary To the beach of Malibu Everybody knows it's coming apart Take one last look at this Sacred Heart Before it blows And everybody knows Everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows Oh everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows Everybody knows Written By Sharon Robinson & Leonard Cohen
The weird thing is that I haven’t heard that song in a while. Let’s face it, it’s dark and not something that anyone who’s the least bit depressed should listen to. It is however, a good song.
I guess I’ll go back to banging my head against the employment wall and just wait & see what happens next.
When the wheels come off this bus, it will be spectacular.
I am curious to see what happens in the Newsom recall. I have no doubt that he’ll retain office. I’m absolutely sure that we’ll never know if he retains office legally or by nefarious means.
I say that, because these days who do you trust?
Like tears in the rain.
I don’t know if that phrase is from an older work, or if it originated in the script of Blade Runner.
Nonetheless, it’s a great visualization.
Afghanistan has fallen. Apparently President Biden was shocked, according to some reports. This, less than a month after he told America and the world that the Afghanistan Military could handle the country’s defense.
Uh huh.
There are tons of articles all over the net with various takes on this situation.
The most poignant was one I read on Apple News. It’s actually an article that appears in The Guardian here .
We’ve spent 20 years in Afghanistan. In that time we’ve lost troops, had others maimed, still others remain profoundly affected by what they saw and endured in that country. Those men and women did an outstanding job and their duty, of that there is no question.
I’m less certain that we should have remained in Afghanistan after we’d broken the Taliban. But that wasn’t really an option now was it?
The beliefs that allow the Taliban can’t be changed overnight, and apparently they can’t be changed in 20 years. I suspect that even 100 years wouldn’t change the underlying belief structure that creates monstrous ruling bodies like the Taliban.
You’d have to systematically destroy every mosque, kill every Imam, burn every copy of the Quran, wipe all memory of Islam from the internet, and destroy all of that religion’s adherents everywhere.
First of all we don’t have the stomach for that kind of bloodshed. Second of all, it would be wrong for us to try. Third of all, it would be doomed to fail right from the start.
We have historical examples of failure to eliminate beliefs. Rome tried it with the Christians. Hitler wasn’t successful with Jews. Even the Ottoman Empire couldn’t eradicate the Jews in Spain, nor could the Inquisition. The kind of oppression required to attempt something like eliminating a religion would simply drive it underground.
You have to kill not only the practitioners of a religion, you have to kill all memory of it entirely. Which is something that the Taliban understands all too clearly. That is why no world heritage site, or non-islamic archeological dig is safe in Taliban territory. They understand how to destroy “false beliefs”. Their brutality in this is unmatched.
Which brings me to the point I want to make.
We as a nation must enact a non-interference policy. It is not our job to free anyone from their dogma, or give them a democracy by force. Our military is ours. It exists to defend us and our interests from invaders, or conquerors. That’s it. Our allies are by definition in our best interests and they too deserve our protections just as they offer their armies under treaty to our protection.
That being said, when we’ve done the job, we should leave. To do anything else leads to decades of misery and unintended consequences.
Think of the misery the young woman in The Guardian article has to endure now. Had the Taliban remained in force for the past 20 years, she’d still have lived the misery to be sure. But now she knows there’s another way, she knows what she’s lost, she’ll feast on that bitterness for the rest of her life.
Were I in her position…
I’d develop a pretty healthy hatred of the US and all Americans for abandoning her to her fate after showing her how things could be different. I’d be teaching all my children to hate Americans, America is a lie, America cannot be trusted, America deserves to be destroyed.
That’s how the cycle of violence continues.
We MAKE our enemies, and frankly, we do it very well. How many more generations will spring from this one woman and all the others like her, enlightened and abandoned by our actions?
We shouldn’t have long term student visas for any country outside our allies. Short term upper division students perhaps, but not long term college educations.
Long term students simply become contaminated, then return to their countries with knowledge of a very different life. How can one of those folks ever be content returning to cooking over a fire pit or defecating in a hole in the ground, when they’ve lived the convenience and ease that Western civilization enjoys?
I know what I’m saying sounds cruel. But I think it far more cruel to “give” someone 21st century knowledge and then send them back to the 6th century.
President Biden’s legacy will be his Baghdad Bob moment a month ago. But the legacy of hatred and terrorist activities to come, belongs to our government from Bush through Biden, perhaps even further back than that.
I think it is time for us to exit the role of “good guys”, it’s time for us to stop trying to remake the world in our image. It’s time for Americans to be mythical beings in undeveloped parts of the world. Something whispered of, but never seen.
It is well past time for us to stop feeding our enemies, or pumping trillions of dollars, material, and American lives, into a hole that will never never be filled.
People make war on each other, and people die every day, disease and natural disasters happen all the time, these are facts of life. We need to get past our messiah complex and focus on our own problems.
There is no shame or guilt in recognizing that we can’t help everyone. The shame is in telling those people we will help, then breaking that promise.
Close our borders, allow visitors from allied countries only. That way we don’t contaminate and destroy primitive cultures.
We have historical examples of cultural contamination starting with the European conquest of North and South America. (Damage done. There’s no going back) We have examples of other indigenous people having their lives turned upside down in the South Pacific during World War II. (See Cargo Cults.) We even have contemporary examples of possible cultural contamination with all the hubbub surrounding UFOs and Alien contact.
Just the rumors of Aliens causes shockwaves and distractions in our “enlightened” culture. If they actually exist, it would make sense for them to be circumspect. Especially if they’re doing some kind of anthropology study.
We’re advanced compared to some of the folks on our planet, but we’re not superior.
We certainly don’t have enough positive outcomes to be dictating how any one else should be living.
It’s time for us to come to grips with our limitations and recognize that;
“Sometime you have to be cruel to be kind.”
Congratulations to Richard Branson!
Very well done Sir!
I was astounded, that in the wake of Branson’s achievement instead of congratulations, there were pundits, politicians, and wags, saying things like, “This is why we need a billionaire wealth tax.”
SAY WHAT???
Branson, used his own money, legally earned, requisite taxes paid, and he built a space craft. Then he further put his money where his mouth was and climbed aboard for a flight.
The thing could have malfunctioned, and freeze dried Branson and his crew, it could have exploded, it could have crashed. Thankfully it didn’t, but there was a rather high element of risk in the adventure.
All you have to do to recognize that is look at our planetary history of space travel. That particular history is littered with brave pioneers who died due to various accidents. Remember the Challenger? How about Columbia? Both of those were tried and true pieces of technology which had flown many times before. So much so, that the shuttle launches had become almost ho-hum.
Were I a Branson, Bezos, or Musk. I too would be working to get my own ships into space. The moment my technology worked well enough that I could build a space station, I wouldn’t come back to Earth.
Why bother? The petty politics of this planet and stupidity of our leaders make space look pretty darn attractive.
Space is like international waters. I could keep what I salvaged, and there’s not a damn thing the politicians or practically anyone else could for to stop me.
My next move would be to make the long assed journey to the asteroid belt and start claiming mineral rights on various asteroids. I’d catalog the minerals, and then start the bidding.
“Oh China, you need 220 million tons of nickel? What’s your opening bid?”
“Russia, you need iron? How much? What’s your bid?”
“Germany, you need copper? I’ve got a nice little asteroid just full of the stuff, What’s your bid?”
The whole while I’d be telling politicians, “TAX THIS”
I wouldn’t be asking for money, I’d be asking for Oxygen, Food, Water, and only materials that I couldn’t mine, make, or make use of from the asteroids themselves. I’d be looking for Ice (Water, Methane, Co2) you name it, because I suspect in short order I could make my asking price machines that would be able to refine those materials in my space station too.
Earth would always be my point of origin, a pretty blue speck in the solar system. But a shithole of politics and petty disagreeable people. I’d market employment to folks that could and would work for a living.
I’d give folks another choice, if we decided to take Mars for ourselves, colonize it, and build a better world there’d be no-one who could stop us.
You wouldn’t want to be “fired” from my enterprise because that would mean being sent back to Earth, the shithole, the place where you’d be detained, questioned by moronic politicians looking for some “Crime”, and then taxed on your presumed profits.
Space wouldn’t be an easy, or a safe life, but it would be your life. A life where you were directly in control of your destiny.
For all of you reading this that are thinking., “That will never happen. These billionaires are just playing around because they have the money to waste,” Think again.
Musk has already set his sights on Mars. Branson is talking about space tourism. God only knows what Bezo’s goal is. But each of these guys became a billionaire by seeing opportunity and exploiting it.
If you think they’re doing all of this just to see who’s dick is bigger think again!
One ex NASA engineer was quoted as saying something like, these guys are making advances, spending in a year, what NASA spent in a month. Think about that. How fast do you think innovation is going to happen now that private companies know it’s possible to make their own ships?
With the ability to make ships comes competition about who makes the best ships, the fastest ships, the best engines, the best navigation, Branson’s Unity will probably look like the Wright Brothers plane in 70 years or so. Earth will probably become a quaint little backwater where people are still bitching about politics, religion, poverty, skin color, equity versus equality, and who to tax next.
The real power brokers of humanity will be stretching across our solar system, and beyond.
Space, work ethic, and capitalism, will be the great equalizers. You fuck up in space, and no one will ever hear you whine or scream about the unfairness of it all. If you’re beyond the orbit of Mars and fuck up, you’ll likely be dead and frozen for an hour before anyone gets your first call for help.
Space makes no judgement about you, it will kill you given a chance. All meat is dead meat to the harshness of vacuum.
Not Sure if this is better… or worse.
I’ve been noticing over the last few months more and more “Cookie Notifications”.
Hell, even I post a cookie notification on this site.
I don’t collect or indeed look at the metrics provided by these cookies but the blog application collects them. I don’t monetize the readership of this blog, I’ve thought about it, but decided against it .
While I could use the money, ultimately it’s more important to be able to speak my mind without worrying about someone having leverage to force me to take down or apologize for a post.
I posted the cookie notification because you, the reader, have the right to know that information is being collected about you.
That being said, I’ve noticed while reviewing the various cookie policies of sites that I visit, a shocking amount of information is being collected.
The most egregious site thus far, is a site of an adult nature that I’ve enjoyed for many years. This adult site posted their cookie policy sometime in the past few weeks, (Hey, I enjoy the site, but don’t live on it.)
Reviewing their policy presented me with over 100 “Affiliate” companies all of whom set tracking cookies, share information about my interests, have access to my location as listed on site, and pretty much anything and everything I’ve provided about me. Given the nature of the site, the immense sharing of information is troubling.
On the one hand, they’ve probably always been sharing this information, such is the nature of monetization. On the other hand knowing what they’re sharing, and the breathtaking length of companies they’re sharing information with, gives me considerable pause.
Any reasonable adult knows (or should know) that sites of an “Adult” nature are risky by nature, these sites are “The Wild West” and often beyond the reach, or notice of law enforcement. These sites come & go without warning. If you’re a “Free” user they’re going to sell some of your information. After all, they’re in it to make money.
As a reasonable adult, we each must make a value choice. Do we really want to see what’s on the site versus how much we’re willing to “pay” to see it.
That thought leads me to question if these sites will make the next logical move. A move where paid membership affords you privacy from tracking and monetization. If the site is making money from memberships do they need to also share the member’s data?
I’d actually pay a membership fee, if I knew that I’d be excluded from having my peculiarities broadcast to hundreds of unknown advertising agencies attempting to target me with their wares.
Essentially, if you’re using a paid VPN service that’s what you’re doing when you’re surfing the web but not logged into Bing, Google, Yahoo, or whatever. Most of the people I know, use a “Burner” email address for questionable sites.
I wonder about all the information that’s already out there on us all as individuals. The genie is pretty much out of the bottle. Will I forever be followed by an ad showing ‘Fat bottomed Blow Up Slut doll’ because once in 2000 while operating my computer intoxicated, I thought it was interesting to click on that particular genre of ad?
This line of thought has also led me to wonder about my overall membership, free or otherwise on the small number of sites that I frequent.
Much as I’ve enjoyed the site I visited last night, do I really need to visit it, or any sites? I really appreciate their upfront attitude and transparency. For me that is a definite check in the “Plus” column. But as someone who tries to keep a low internet profile, (this blog not withstanding,) how much do I want to share?
Brietbart is an interesting case study in persistence. Almost every time I go to their site I’m being asked to accept tracking and cookies. Every single time I tell them they’re not allowed to sell my information and confirm that choice. But they keep asking, I suspect they’re hoping that one day I’ll just cave in and say “Accept All”. That is somewhat ironic because they’re always ‘banging on’ about freedom and privacy. Them constantly asking the way they do is also degrading the user experience and I find myself less inclined to visit their site at all.
Generally, the same is true, for me, of all websites. I’ve noticed that when I’m confronted with yet another “Cookie / Privacy notice” I’m more prone to not click beyond the notice, instead I’ll close the page.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
If people get tired of answering questions about cookies and tracking, perhaps they’ll stop relying on the internet for all their information… I doubt it.
I can say that since I’ve put the cookie notice up on this site, the traffic through the site has decreased. That data is gleaned not from cookies, but from a count of incoming ip addresses the site maintains over a 24 hour period.
From my perspective, the usability of the internet is degraded. It’s like getting gas at some gas stations or making a purchase with my debit card. I don’t think it’s reasonable to be asked if I want a car wash, to donate to this or that cause, do I want a receipt, or be shouted at with advertisements from a blaring screen, or whatever… I just want to get on with my day.
The internet is becoming another case of answer 50 questions get the simplest things done.
In that regard… I’m leaning more to closing accounts I don’t absolutely need and moving back to good old fashioned printed books and reference manuals.
I’ve been using cash for purchases a lot more lately. It’s really nice, transactions the way they’re supposed to be.
Some would say that’s a sign of paranoia.
For me, it’s about not wanting to be bothered.
When I was much younger, I worked at Radio Shack. We didn’t use a cash register, we wrote out orders on a receipt book and had only a cash drawer. We were supposed to ask each and every customer for their name and mailing address. Many customers, young and old refused to provide this information. It’s amazing to me how much has changed and in such a short time.