Category: Things that make you say hmmm?

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Forced into computer maint

Which is boring… ON the up side I can still use the system while it’s fixing one of the drives.

Which means that I can blog, and I can watch the crazy shit on YouTube.

Let me make a couple of things clear. 

I absolutely believe in the Drake Equation. More information about the Drake equation can be found here.

The short explanation is that a guy by the name of Frank Drake attempted to calculate the potential number of civilizations that might be in our galaxy.

The equation itself is 

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where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on our current past light cone);

and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space[5]

My belief in the math, doesn’t automatically mean that I think there are aliens around every corner. 

On the other hand I do think that certain anomalous structures on this planet and on our near neighbors deserve investigation.

I’m talking about real science. Not some preconceived beliefs where a scientist is trying to make the evidence fit what they want to believe. I’m talking about an objective dispassionate analysis of the quantifiable facts.

A couple of Earthbound examples would be the Sphinx and the pyramid complex at Giza.

No I’m not suggesting by default that these sites were built by Aliens. I’m suggesting that there is considerable evidence to suggest that the Sphinx is far older than the current accepted age. But that evidence and the theories surrounding it are being ignored or in some cases suppressed.

In the case of the pyramids I’ve just wondered why the Great pyramid is so light on the writing. I mean practically every monument from ancient Egypt is covered with drawings, art, and hieroglyphs why is the Great pyramid so … bare? Just one of those questions I’ve always been curious about.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to discover that the grandeur of Egypt actually went back further than the accepted timeline? Imagine discovering that civilizations in what is now known as Egypt went back 10, 15, or 20 thousand years. Talk about rewriting world history… The Sphinx enclosure seems to point that direction. 

We as human beings deserve to know if our history is richer than previously thought. If our ancestors moved from a hunter gatherer existence to an agricultural civilization earlier than previously imagined then those chapters of our history need to be told and explored.

None of which implies that Aliens were here then or are here now.

Our species is amazingly clever and resourceful. It’s a pity that all too often we choose to use our cleverness to kill each other over some of the stupidest things.

It’s not any more outlandish to say some of our ancestors advanced 5000 years earlier than we thought they did than it is to say Aliens showed up 4000 years ago and taught us farming and building techniques.

All that being said, I’d love to actually meet a benign Alien. I specify because the thought of meeting an Alien that was anything but benign is terrifying. I’m not entirely sure that I’m ready to be someones dinner.

I’d really like to see serious investigation into some of the strange pictures the alien conspiracy people use as their proof of civilizations on Mars or the Moon.

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I’m not talking about the guy who magnifies Nasa photos to the point that they begin to pixelate and then does a color shift to enhance & show “buildings”. Although his photo montages with the spooky music are good for a laugh.

Come on, I can take a picture of my dick, and magnify it to the point of pixelation, do a little color shifting and “prove” that aliens have a civilization on the head of my penis. Hummm probably not the best example…

That sounds more like a commercial for the latest product in body lice removal. (Note to the lice shampoo manufacturers, If you use this idea as a marketing campaign I’m going to want my cut.)

“Don’t let invaders build a civilization in your nether regions. Get a bottle of alien kill and wash those itchy devils down the drain. Only 9.95 at your local drug store.

Caution: Alien kill may cause flushing, irritation, skin sloughing, uncontrollable erections, premature ejaculation, impotence, and tenderness in the breasts.”

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There are interesting anomalies in some of the Nasa photos that sure as heck look like regular structures. They could just as easily be lava tubes but I’d like to know.

The bottom line is that I’d like to believe we’ve been visited, I’d like to know for sure one way or the other.

I’m not so gullible as to watch these YouTube videos with anything but the utmost skepticism. 

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One video that really cracked me up today was where this guy is in all seriousness talking about a “UFO crash site” in Antarctica.

He sees four “Tanks” and a trench gouged in the snow by the “Crash”. 

I see four tents. 

He sees the gun barrels of the tanks.

I see the shadows cast by heater/stove vents sticking up through the top of the tents.

I see what looks like a camp.

This “proof” is from Google Earth for goodness sake.

Looking at the shadows, these are not four tanks, their shadows are different indicating to me that the structures casting those shadows have differing shapes which tanks don’t. It looks like the sun is kind of low on the horizon so the object at the top of the frame has something large and boxlike sticking up that’s casting a square shadow. 

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Whatever these are, they’ve been there long enough to have created snow drifts from the wind blowing. I doubt seriously that a military recovery of a crashed UFO would have taken that long.

The gouge and the mysterious pile at the end of it, look like a trench dug with a bulldozer. I’m thinking the trench and tents are some kind of research. Maybe some scientists wanted to look at snow / ice deposition with a wider view than is possible with Ice cores. Maybe they’re trying to get an idea of how fast meteor crater impacts would be covered over in Antarctica. It could be a poop trench for all we know.

But unlike the spooky music folks, I see nothing conspiratorial in this photo. 

I really have to ask this… Since Google is an American company. Don’t you think that the NSA, CIA, and FBI would have the ability to censor images?

If indeed there is a conspiracy do you think these organizations would leave a UFO crash available to be seen by the general public?

I kind of doubt it. 

The thing our government is good at, is cover-ups.

There are a couple of things that these YouTube UFO conspiracy videos prove. 

Humans are immensely imaginative. We see exactly what we want, need, or expect to see. Often what we see is in direct contradiction with reality.

When early man looked up into the void is it any wonder they saw powerful beings in the patterns of the sky and stars? Their brains were wired to see familiar patterns.

For all our sophistication and technology it’s amusing for me to discover that we’re not much different from our early superstitious ancestors.

The only thing that has changed is how we’re getting the patterns to look at.

Be cynical, question the “truth” of what you see and hear. It’s the only way to be sure you really know what you think you know.

I’m going back to the Nasa is lying to us thread on YouTube.

This shit cracks me up!

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It’s that time of year again

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I live above the snow line. 

That means that unlike a lot of Southern California I really do see a change in seasons. Well usually, this year has been a very strange year.

We’ve had a couple of snowfalls and that’s great for the ski resorts and for the town itself.

The down side of having snow is that the traffic on the weekends is nightmarish.

I think it’s actually worse than Huntington Beach on July 4th. I can say that because I lived in Huntington Beach for a number of years and while I love the town and the ocean, I planned to be gone during the Summer.

There were days when it could take 45 minutes to drive 4 blocks. If I wanted a carton of ice cream, I walked because that was the only way to get home with the ice cream unmelted. 

Yep, walking to the grocery store was faster than driving.

I have the same problem where I live now.  Only it’s magnified a bit, see there’s only one major road coming into town and all it takes is one idiot who thinks they don’t need chains on an icy road to screw everyone.

The other problem that we have is people who think it’s perfectly ok to drive up into a neighborhood, park wherever they want and let their children run rampant through yards to go play in the snow.

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Aside from the general damage done to landscaping, there’s the liability issue. If one of these uninvited assholes gets hurt on my property, technically i’m liable. If they get hurt on the private road, my neighbors and I maintain, then all of us are liable.

So I find myself in frequent exchanges with our uninvited guests.

I want to give them a chance to leave of their own free will and hate to bother the Sheriff. But if they don’t leave I’ll make the call.

The exchanges always go one of two ways.

ME: Can I help you?

THEM: No we’re just here to play in the snow.

ME: That’s nice, there are several public play areas down just off the highway. You’re parked on private property and the rear of your vehicle is blocking the road.

THEM: We’re just going to be here a few minutes. We have children who’ve never seen snow.

ME: If the lady whose property you’re parked on, or the residents up the street who can’t get past your car decide to call the police you’re going to be towed. It really would be better if you went to the public play areas and then you could spend as much time as you want.

THEM: The traffic is really bad down there on the highway. Besides there are 50 people just down the block playing in the snow.

ME: Your choice, you’re telling your kids that it’s ok to invade a neighborhood without permission to do what they wish,  but that’s your business. Stay the hell away from the fence line my dogs don’t like strangers. Dogs on queue start barking.

The second way this conversation goes is 

ME: Can I help you?

THEM: No comprende

ME: No es amusment publico, Estans Casas private, Por favor vamanos.

THEM: FUCK YOU, We have a right to be here.

ME: Not really. This is a neighborhood and these driveways are cleared by the residents so that they have a place to park not so that strangers have parking.

THEM: Fuck You, come on lets go play up on that hill.

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I soft peddle it a bit because on more than a few occasions the visitors have gone to their car or truck and pulled a gun on the homeowner asking them to leave. This hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m sure that it will at some point in the future.

Sadly it’s the nature of the people we’re dealing with. Which is not to be construed as racist. It’s more a statement about people that feel they don’t have to play by the rules.

What bothers me is the subtext of these exchanges.

(I’ve even fallen for it a couple of times because I can see the little faces pressed up against the windows of the car and I really do understand how excited they are.

In the situations where I’ve fallen for it I’ve let the people park in my driveway and sent them out back to play. I’ve been repaid for my kindness with trash on my lawn, and in one case dirty diapers left on my deck.) 

The first exchange type, these people assume that I haven’t heard this story before.

I do understand the kids. They should have an experience and I really am torn about telling them no. It’s that old programming my parents gave me. Children are to be protected and cherished and is it really any skin off my nose to let ’em play in the snow out back?

But come on, You’re using your kids to con me… 

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I didn’t have anything to do with making your kids. Perhaps if you, or your wife / girlfriend  offered to entertain me I’d feel differently.

Like all men I’m about a little sexual gratification. Someone on their knees in front of me, might persuade me to change my mind.

You’re telling me that traffic is bad?

Look dumbass I know traffic is bad because I can’t leave my house!

Weekends and holidays I plan to stay put because I know that it’s going to take me minimum 2 hours to get home if I go more than 20 miles away.

The second exchange type is just as bad if not worse.

They start the conversation with a lie. They try to make the dumb white guy think that conversation is useless because they “Don’t understand what he’s saying”. 

When I try to converse with them in Spanish suddenly we have a miracle… They speak English just fine.

In both cases these people try to justify their actions (which I contend they know are wrong) by using the teenage fall back

“Everyone else is doing it” 

I’m so tempted to tell these folks what my Mother used to tell me.

“20, 50 or 100 people it doesn’t matter, if they all jumped off a cliff would you?”

Recently we actually had a proof of that statement at a lake near here.

As it turns out the answer is yes for some people. There was a situation where people were sledding down a short embankment then out onto a partially frozen lake. 12 of them ended up in the water and one of them almost drown / froze to death.

The amazing thing about it is that there are signs in multiple languages saying that the lake is dangerous and that you shouldn’t walk on the ice.

Even as the ice on the lake was cracking and people were falling through into the water below. More and more people were walking out onto the lake to see what was going on. Some of them obviously stepping over cracks in the ice. 

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I digress, the message these people are giving their kids is that they’re entitled to take what they want.

They’re saying that it’s ok to violate the social contract that says you respect other peoples privacy and property, if you’re tired of sitting in traffic and you want something.

At the same time these people will bitch loud, long, and hard if they feel even the slightest affront to their perceived rights.

Implicitly, these people teach a double standard. Their rights are important but no-one else’s rights matter.

Worse they’re teaching the very racist message; “because you’re brown you don’t have to obey the rules.“

It’s been suggested that everyone in our town pick another town down the mountain on a particular day. Then we saddle up with our picnic baskets and our bathing suits and simply occupy an area. 

We’d go have a nice party in some random neighborhood, use their pools and park all over the place, in driveways, on the streets, wherever.

Then when the cops showed up … and they would. We’d show the homeowners pictures of our driveways, and streets in the Winter time.

Maybe that would drive the point home.

More likely, my whole town would be in jail…

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I think she’s going have her college degree paid for….

I noticed that this case was proceeding.

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This Article is short.

Essentially a high school girl wore a Romney / Ryan T-shirt to class. It’s alleged that her teacher told her to leave the room and that wearing that T-Shirt was akin to wearing a KKK outfit. (Neither of which is banned in America, if I recall both are still protected by the first amendment.).

A KKK outfit? Really? Had I been a student in that school I’d have shown up the next day in a Nazi Uniform. With the added touch of putting an Obama / Democratic Party logo below the swastika. At least then I’d have been sent home for just cause. I’m assuming that the school has some kind of dress code that precludes something as blatant as a Nazi uniform.

The teacher went on to say that the school was Democratic.

Clearly the teacher forgot the other definitions of  democratic.

Websters says

1) “of, relating to, or favoring democracy”.

2) “often capitalized: of or relating to on of the two major political parties in the United States evolving in the early 19th century from the anti-federalists and the Democratic-Republican party and associated in modern times with policies of broad social reform and internationalism.”

3) “relating to, appealing to, or available to the broad masses of the people”

4) “favoring equality: not snobbish”

Yes I know that the teacher was speaking about the party… But I’ve noticed recently that the average members of the Democratic party… the citizens claiming to be Democrats often don’t practice what they preach.

The school and the teacher are being taken to court for violation of the girls first amendment rights. But the young lady has since transferred to a different school and was apparently threatened by other students due to the teachers action.

I’m ambivalent about the lawsuit thing.

I wouldn’t mind seeing the teacher punished.

Not because they expressed their opinion. But because they in one moment destroyed the concept that everyone has a right to speak their mind. The teacher used their power in the classroom to create a mob mentality. Us vs. THEM!

The teacher instituted a CLASS distinction. They created a situation where clearly the ruling class (We’re Democrats) had the ability to oppress anyone that disagreed with them.

The oppression came in this case in the form of the young lady being sent home from school. And subsequently when she was threatened by her peers.

In our society we must listen to differing opinions. It’s our duty to protect the rights of people to speak their mind. EVEN if we ourselves disagree vehemently with their position.