Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Don't Take the South Road (A series)

The phone in his hand buzzed as he stared at it. His thumb expertly crossed the small keys and opened the incoming message.

"Don't take the south road", it blinked. He raised his brow in surprise. "Really?...The south road huh?", he said to himself.

His fingers raced to clear the message and dial a phone number he was reading off a dog-eared business card. After a few rings in his ear, a wheezing man picked up the call. "Who's this?" the wheezer said with a slightly annoyed tone.

"Hey Alfred. Harold here. How are you making out?"

Alfred took a moment to reply then proceeded to feign enthusiasm. "Oh yeah. Harold...it's going good. I'm just loading up the last crate and then over to grab some fuel and then hit the road." He paused then asked, "What's up?"

Harold cleared his throat. "Yah Alfred. I'm glad I caught you before you left....I want to tell you not to take the south road. I got word that there are problems that way and so in the interest of getting the shipment to the warehouse with as few problems as possible, you need to take the 844."

There was silence on the phone except for heavy breathing.

Harold continued. "You got that? Take the 844...not the south .."

Alfred interupted with incredulity. "The 844?....Your kidding right?"

"No..you havta take the 844", Harold said with his voice slightly raised. "I don't want problems..take the 844...I know it will add an hour and fifteen to your trip but I don't want problems...."

"What problems?", snarled an irritated Alfred.

"What difference does it make?...I'm paying for the run so just take the 844". Harold's voice picked up a cold brittle quality as he cut his words.

Alfred edged his tone up.."You wanted this load into the warehouse by four. If I take the 844..... not going to happen. So which is it? "

Harold gripped the phone tightly and closed his eyes. He raised his left hand and ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

"Then get the load there by five. Pick up time on the toll road."

Alfred responded with disgust. "Ok. It's your call...I'm on my way".

"Thank you", Harold said. Tension tighten around his face as he ended the call and dropped the phone into the pocket on his grey shirt.

posted by Wild 7:13:00 PM |

Singing Like a Canary

posted by Wild 3:15:00 PM |

SHADOWLANDS

posted by Wild 2:28:00 PM |

THE WAIT

A gust of wind blew past me raising a cloud of fine dust into my face. I lifted the palm of my hand to shield my eyes from the grit.

When the dust settled, I looked down the road hoping to see the bus making its way down the crumbling road. A few cars trundled by but the bus was not in sight.

The sun powered down on me with an incandescent heat.

"Where is this bus?" I grumbled to myself. "….Probably broken down somewhere."

I looked down at the woven basket filled with vegetables I had picked up at the open-air market. Some spinach leaves peered through the sheets of newspaper I had tucked over the basket to keep the dust off my precious cargo. Under the spinach lay two kilos of potatoes and a few oranges. I leaned down and rearranged the newspaper.

Squinting down the road I could see the heat waves dancing on the horizon so that it looked as if the asphalt road ended in a shimmering lake of blue water.

I looked towards the north. I could make out two dead cows where they lay by the road. I had seen them that morning on my way into town. They were stretched out on the brown soil with their ribs etched along their backs.

The nomads had driven their herds southwards through town trying to get to greener lands. The drought had burned their grazing zones into a wasteland of talcum powder . As the herds moved, the weaker ones fell and were left to the vultures along the way.

I waited on. The afternoon became still and silent. Across the road from where I stood, a massive willow tree drooped heavily over a small regional medical clinic. A neatly trimmed lawn lay invitingly in the shade.

I thought of crossing the road to wait for the bus away from the sun. I grasped the handles of my basket but as I started to lift it, the faint grind of a motor echoed through the hot air. I turned to look down the road but the bus did not rise from the watery mirage. I strained to listen for the sound but it faded away and was gone.

"I should walk home," I thought.

I bent over and lifted the basket off the ground to test its weight. The thin leather straps cut into my fingers and I knew I would not be able to stand the pain after a kilometer or two. Nine miles in the heat would be torturous especially with the awkward weight of the basket. I set it back down.

My lips were dry. I brushed a fly off my nose.

I turned to look at the mud-walled houses that stood in crude rows behind me.

The blended smell of laundry detergent and sewage wafted by from the makeshift village. The roughly finished doors and windows of the huts were closed against the heat. I tried to decide whether it would feel better to stand in the sun or to wait out the afternoon in one of the tin-roofed huts.

I glanced up at the sky and estimated that it was 2:00 pm. I had been standing at the bus stop since the sun looked to be at high noon.

"I'll probably be getting the 3:30 bus." I groaned. "They must have skipped the 12:30 altogether."

The shady patch under the giant willow called out to me again. As I touched the basket to heave it across the road, I heard a door close.

I looked up to see a man and a woman leaving the clinic. They were walking hesitantly. The woman clutched the man's arm. She was limping slightly. The couple slowly crossed the road and reached the bus stop. The man glanced at me with bloodshot eyes.

He was tall and thin and dressed in a pale threadbare suit. The jacket hung off his shoulders like it would a wire coat hanger.

She was draped in a faded cotton cloth that covered her head and looped to the ground. She spoke in a strange rapid language that I didn't recognize. His replies were slow and even-toned to calm her. She gripped his arm tightly as though she was trying to take some weight off her feet.

I remained where I was with nothing to say.

The old grey bus blustered up to where the three of us stood. The weary conductor opened the door to let us in and away from the inhospitable afternoon.

The wait was finally over.

posted by Wild 11:29:00 PM |

THE AXE IS AT THE ROOT OF THE TREE

I was young...about 3 and a half years old.

I was playing quiety in the tidy backyard bordered by a tall prickly hedge.

From time to time, I looked up from my games in the black soil and stared at the stone house where I lived. Near the front door stood a dead lemon tree.

High in the leafless branches was a small dry lemon that had died with the tree.

As far back as I could remember, the lemon swayed on the bare twigs against the cirrus clouds that hung in silence far above my small yard and my small stone house and the row of houses down my street.

My father held the axe by his side as he decided how he wanted the tree to fall.

I asked my mother why the tree needed to be cut down. She explained that the tree was dead and that it needed to be cut down before it fell on somebody.

As the ax began to fly, I felt a pang of anxiety. Till that moment, I had believed the world was permanent and unchanging. Suddenly, the fixed universe I had imagined proved to be alterable and destructable.

The tree now lay on the grass beside the stump of freshly cut wood. A strong earthy citrus smell filled the air as I push my way through the branches to pick the small lemon I had gazed at for so long. It detached easily in my grasp.

It was lighter than I had imagined.

I stood with the rusty brown lemon in my hand surrounded by the tangle of brittle sticks looking up into the empty piece of sky my lemon tree once filled.

posted by Wild 10:28:00 AM |

The Fortress



Tall grass brushed by my heavy woollen coat
I pushed through the dripping leaves
Morning dew fell on my sodden boots

The sun warmed the edge of the sky
With a mist of orange light that
Touched the curls of blackened clouds

I paused to listen for the sound of dogs and trackers
And even though the chilling air was silent
I hurried still toward the east


Towards the long forgotten keep
The citadel at Charmenquay

posted by Wild 7:01:00 PM |

In the distance you can see the ancient volcano called Mt. Kenya. Peaking at 17, 027 feet, she is the 2nd highest mountain in Africa after Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I took this picture on a journey I made to Kenya back in 2004 to attend my grandmother's funeral.

My grandmother had lived all her 104 years with this view of the mountain and we buried her in the deep red volcanic soil she had cultivated to feed her family.

Through famine, war and oppression, she raised 13 children on the foothills of the mountain.

She was widowed because my grandfather had been a casualty of the Mau Mau uprising that raged in the forests visible in the picture. In the dense underbrush, the famous Mau Mau warriors conducted a deadly guerrilla war against the British settlers and against African civilians who had not show adequate loyalty to their cause.

My grandfather was the first African teacher in the province and he was a christian man. His teaching was seen as cooperation with the British colonialists and he disappeared one night never to be seen again. He was probably tortured before he was killed as was customary for the Mau Mau.

By the time I came around as one of her many grandchildren, the turbulence had faded away and my grandmother would come to look after me from time to time when my parents were away. She was gracious, patient, tough, gentle and wise. She loved to sit in our yard and look through the pile of National Geographic magazines we accumulated. Even though she could not read, she was thrilled by the pictures that showed her the lives of people from around the earth.

I remember her marveling over the images of elderly Europeans, South Americans and Asians in the magazines when they were pictured tending to their gardens growing potatoes and cabbage just like she did. She was delighted to discover that her life of stooping in her small farm eeking a living from the soil was practiced by all kinds of people.

Over the entire span of the 20th century, she tended her garden with unceasing toil and she was glad to discover that she had not been the only one.

posted by Wild 2:48:00 AM |

THE PASSING AGE

We separated from barbarity hesitantly
For it had been our trusted law
The lifting of the primitive club to assert our will
Fighting tooth and claw

We laid our stone implements at our feet
A watchful eye on those around lest our lives they sought
Until a civil creed began its course through history
To build a life fit for those who thought

A new law held out hope as we found the footholds
To hold dominion over the earth as transcendent ones
But transcend we did not for our hands grew weak
Our eyes grew weary as did our guns

The lamps are lowered
The flags they fall
The barbarians rage
At the passing age

posted by Wild 2:24:00 PM |

ALL THE BEST IN THE NEW YEAR

posted by Wild 10:32:00 AM |

THE END OF AMERICA?

Patrick Buchanan, former Presidential Candidate, writer and commentator has written a book titled: "The End of America".

Such a title would seem hyperbolic if it were not for the credentials held by the writer.


A few years ago, Buchanan wrote an article detailing the population collapse in Russia and the political effects that this collapse would have in relation to Russia's democratic development and the relationship that Russia had with China.

The article gained prominence when it was picked up by Pravda (Russia's state newspaper) and since that time, political shifting in that country seems to have followed the patterns described by Buchanan well over four years ago. A good example of this is the state-mandated procreation campaign that has been championed by President Putin. In response to Russia's imploding population, the country has resorted to fascist rhetoric and methodology to try reverse the trends that are pointing to the dissolution of the motherland.

The prescience of Mr. Buchanan's look at Russia makes his examination of the United States worth looking into.

In excerpts from his book posted by Drudge, Buchanan suggests that America is decomposing in an existential meltdown leaving global forces like China and Islam to scramble for control over regions of the earth that the weakening US is unable to influence.

The US is indeed suffering from an existential crisis. Much of what passes for political debate in the US is no longer about the interests of Americans as a citizen block but rather the interests of sub-groups inside (and increasingly outside) the United States. Having conducted its political discourse in this tone for nearly 40 years, it is not entirely surprising that a single unified narrative of America and the promise that she represents no longer exists.

Without a single national narrative, the country has balkanized into competing interest groups with evidence of this discernible in legislation (from the bench and otherwise) that increasingly pits seniors against youth, women against men, civilians against soldiers, race against race and class against class.

Whereas the American political system was designed to operate on a competitive model, players in the political system, in efforts to gain advantage, began converting what should have been the competition of ideas into the competition of grievance. Each grievance having a constituency, the political competition became that of encapsulating as many grievance labels into a party platform in order to command the greatest number of votes.

It is wrong to suggest that there was a time in American history that such political machinations did not exist and that only recently have grievance politics come into play. There has always been a place of grievance politics in America but in my opinion, only in the last 40 years has the discourse surrounding sub-group politics been loud enough to almost entirely drown out the American story.

With a generation emerging within the US that has no direct contact with the singular American idea (think of the people emerging from colleges where courses are offered by the names of Womyn Studies, African-American studies, Queer Studies and others that directly oppose the existence or desirability of a single American people) it is possible that the America of 2015 will not be able to define itself and its reason for existence the way that the America of 1861 and the America of 1939 was able to.

In 1939, German Americans did not represent a voting block impeding America's decision to go to war with Germany. Why? Because American Germans were not cultivated to be a voting block with interests that opposed the interests of the rest of America. There did exist a single American narrative at the time that most Americans including Germans could identify with.

This is sharply in contrast to the current American inability to show a united face to the world due to obstreperous political entities countering the self interest of the US in its fight against Islamic terrorism.

So what will become of America?

Is Buchanan right when he prognosticates America's fall from preeminence?

There are two prongs to this question.

The first is: Can America maintain its dominance as a global power?

The second is: Can America maintain its economic strength and the attendant high standard of living?

Addressing the first is the emergence of political realism that has taken root in American politics. More and more people are resisting their classification within subgroups and identifying with the larger American political body. It is now common to see women fighting the establishment on behalf of men, blacks fighting the establishment on behalf of whites and a general push towards justice.

This trend may set a course on which America may be able to unify its story. If people are able to trust that their interests are the same as the interests of all other Americans, reasoned pursuit of the country's interests may reestablish itself and the parties that represent the grievance groups will decline in influence. With a single sense of national purpose, America could retain global dominance simply by being the voice that holds to the strongest and most compelling standard of justice backed up by a population that itself holds to a high standard of justice.

Regarding the second prong to Buchanan's query, I believe that America's increasing productivity is the key. People outside America have been struggling to understand this counter-intuitive trend.

With industrial manufacturing growing in China and elsewhere at the expense of American manufacturing, it was thought that productivity would be seen to decline alongside an increase in unemployment numbers. This has proven to be wrong over and over again.

This indicator suggests that the American population still believes in work, risk and innovation even though political forces have been working hard to erase incentives to do so. This bodes well for America's future. Productivity is everything when it comes to sustaining a standard of living.

If the US sees a true reduction in political balkanization, the resultant reduction in special-interest liabilities may result in the reduction of disincentives to productivity in the US.

Americans have the privilege of choosing what their futures will look like through the electoral process. If enough people overcome identity politics and vote for America-First politicians, the country might retain its strength for many years. If identity politics plays a major part of the upcoming election, the one of last few remaining chances for America to reclaim a unified voice for America's promise will slip by.

posted by Wild 9:26:00 AM |

SAVING THE PLANET ONE CHILD AT A TIME

I was glancing at Drudge this morning and saw an article describing a woman who had herself sterilized to avoid any chance having children.

Of course it is not uncommon to have this done in the modern world but what is unusual about this particular case is that the woman announced to the world that the reason she decided to preclude the possibility of having children was that she did not wish to burden the earth's resources with yet another human/consumer.

The young woman named Toni Vernelli, an eco-warrior of the first order, represents the beginnings of a phenomenon that will likely burgeon in the next 20 years. More and more young people are emerging from education systems that have bent every educational discipline to include a hyper-sensitization to the ecological impact that humans have. This bombardment on the impressionable minds of the young will likely cause an increasing number of people to discard the idea of having children for the sake of preserving the resources of the Earth.

After a large enough sector of the population decides to sacrifice their own procreation for the sake of the planet, it is likely that an atmosphere of taboo will surround any decision to have children and offspring will be viewed as an evil to be stamped out.

It is not certain that the present examples of eco-sterilizations represent a true change in humanity's view of procreation but here is my reasoning that suggests that it does:

• One of the women in question is 27 years old which means that she started grade one in 1986 and emerged from high school in 1998
  
• Going through high school in the 90's meant that one had to ingest the first wave of hyper-environmentalism that was being propagated. The 27 year old sterilized woman is a product of the environmentalism of the 90's
  
• Hyper-environmentalism has only become more stringent and pervasive since that time and so the youth emerging from high school now will have ingested the 2005-2006-Al-Gore eco-religion

This progression leads me conclude that we are going to see a large wave of sterilizations of 25-27 year old women and men as they emerge from the modern enviro-sensitizing high schools.

One could extrapolate from experience what political action would follow the sterility revolution in our society. It is possible to imagine the government power being used to mandate and provide sterilization. I can imagine a land where nearly everyone is sterilized and only a worthy few are licensed to have children.

Prior experience with the eco-movement has shown us this tendency.

Here is an example: Recycling plastic was something done by the Volvo-driving, granola-eating, nature-walking people who wanted to enrich their lives with activities that made them feel like they were giving back to the earth. In some jurisdictions, this niche activity found its way into the halls of power and it quickly became a government-mandated imposition on all people with in that jurisdiction whether they believed it was a beneficial activity or not.

Back to the subject at hand, this would not be the first time that human societies have rejected procreation whole scale.

History is littered with the remnant of societies that abandoned child bearing and rearing which resulted in the weakening and even extinction of those societies. Rome, the epicenter of the Roman empire is but one example of a society that abandoned child bearing and rearing as a standard human activity. The resulting hollowing out of their population (along with other factors no doubt) ended up in the ruination and collapse of the empire.

The only difference between circumstances in the past and this current looming wholesale sterility is that in the modern age, technology makes it possible to completely sterilize every human being within society whereas in the past, crude or non-existent birth control methods always allowed for some children to get through the gates.

Our modern trend to sterility may result in a strong downward spiral of the human population already markedly visible in parts of Europe and North America.

Who knows? Maybe I have hyped the whole thing.

Here is a link to the article.

posted by Wild 8:18:00 AM |

AM I BACK?

A few days ago, I walked into my office to put in another day when I noticed something had changed.

Something unusual had occurred between the time I left the day before and the time I got in that morning.

What had changed was that ideas were spontaneously flowing through my mind. They were not necessarily good ideas but they were definitely creative ideas.

I was taken aback by the familiar but long missing sense of mental activity of a particular kind that allows blogging to happen.

Some of you who know this blog may remember a time when I had postings almost daily covering all manner of curious things. You may also remember when all the posting petered off as the fountain of ambition and creativity dried up. As desperately as I wanted to blog, I simply could not bring myself to publish the vile drivel that I was struggling to compose.

I had several false starts when I thought the ability to post had returned but these start-ups fizzled away.

Now, I feel a distinct change. The thought of posting an article is not causing me to feel nauseated nor does what I write seem terribly vulgar and revolting. I feel new again....like I could perhaps write a couple of good posts each a week.

Well..... here goes nothing...

posted by Wild 11:43:00 AM |

THE END OF SKEPTICISM

David Hume was an 18th century philosopher considered to be among the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy.

He was the penultimate examiner of the limitations of the human mind. His great question was whether it was possible for the human mind to really know anything for sure.


His main line of inquiry was aimed at our capacity to know religious truth but his scalpel tore out the connective tissue of all human knowledge. David Hume's work led to a fundamental skepticism that marks most western minds to this day.

The human mind is indeed a limited thing whether singularly pitted against difficult puzzles of our universe or collectively carrying accumulated knowledge.

To start, it is best to describe the human mind to be a device that employs an array of transducers to experience the universe in a way that is particular to the needs of the human being. Because of the nature of man, the universe is necessarily going to be a particular thing to man. The universe may be more than we can perceive and it may in fact be less than we perceive but its expression to our human minds is reasonable in as far we measure 'reasonableness'. We do indeed have the faculties to fathom our place in the world because the information we gather through our senses uniformly follows understandable laws as does the phenomena that we perceive only through instruments and inference.

While it is true that the human mind cannot fully know all that there is in reality, it is not true that the human mind cannot know more about reality than the information our five senses can provide. It is plain to see that much of what we do know (and feel confident is true) is the accumulation of knowledge held in minds of other human beings as experiential information but delivered to our own minds as conferred knowledge.

To suggest otherwise (as Hume does) is to suggest that any suspicion or thought formed within the mind of a man has absolutely no chance of bearing confirmation in reality. Our own daily experience shows us that notions formed in our minds very often can be counted on to match what reality delivers. This is a strange argument but please bear with me.

A scientist for example may directly observe the effects of an atom-smashing experiment and thus hold experiential information in his mind. The scientist's paper that is released for study by the rest of us would merely represent conferred knowledge but is reasonably accepted as actual knowledge. Counting on this information very often will bear out our own examination of reality.

This suggests that there is a reasonably dependable continuity between the uptake of information from reality, the holding of the information in the form of human thoughts and then the measuring of those human thoughts against the reality from whence it came. Similarly (in the example given before the last one), proposals of reality formed exclusively within the human mind (excluding what is deliberately designed to be fantasy) can be measured against reality and found to match quite well. There is a continuity between the substance of reality and the corresponding thought form in the human mind whether it is gathered from reality or whether is formed exclusively within the human mind.

David Hume was (and is) famous for attacking the basis on which much of religious thought was formed. He proposed that any claims that Christianity in particular made regarding ultimate reality were simply fiction because the human mind could not cross the bounds of experiential knowledge to understand questions such as of origins, purposes and God.

In my humble view, what David Hume supposed (and wrongly so) was that there was a separation between the universe and the information about the universe.

David Hume's limited supposition may have been due to the limitations of the time in which he lived.

We who live beyond the space age, beyond the atomic age, and beyond the human genome mapping age know that our universe is not primarily composed of matter but rather that it is composed of information. In other words, what appears to be matter and everything else in our universe is nothing but the imposition of information on nothing. (I suspect that even energy itself, properly understood, will reveal itself to be nothing but information but this is the subject for a blogger living far into the future to comment on).

The basis of generic skepticism is that there is an unbridgeable gap between the human mind and reality due to the disparate nature of reality and information.

David Hume's skepticism (along with the skepticism of most other thinkers who followed in his tracks) is going to be unable to travel along with us into the age of the Universe-as-Information.

Reality and information are turning out not be separate after all.

This suggests that when you know something, it is very likely that you can really know it.

(Wikipedia was an important source of information for this post)

posted by Wild 3:19:00 PM |

DON'T TAZE ME BRO

posted by Wild 3:18:00 PM |

THIS IS REALLY COOL

Nessun Dorma

Via Wicked Thoughts Blog

posted by Wild 12:49:00 AM |

MORE POETRY

Tensions add to tensions
Anguish springs from anguish
Sorrow rests on sorrow
Cravings feed on all

Terrors rise in terrors
Regrets float on regrets
Fear gathers fear
Envy curses all

Confusion sows confusion
Ignorance enthrones ignorance
Weakness causes weakness
Pride shatters all

posted by Wild 1:47:00 PM |

Some Poetry

The laws of life are frantic and savage
They move like storms along a shore
To shake the man walking on sand
To make him stagger
To make him fall upon the weeds and shells

The laws of life are large and heavy
They lean on minds of men and roar
To make him strain and sweat to pour
To make him gasp and make him groan
To make him claw for breath and for a whisper in the dark

The laws of life are cold and damp
They clatter like silver knives in the hearts of men
To make him shiver and make him faint
To make him lay upon the sand
To make him still and deathly so for fear of shards of suns and stars

The laws of life are thin and weak
They drift across the grassy lands
They whip around the ears of men
To make him laugh and make him sway
To make him dance on ponds of icy foam and creaking floes of gray

posted by Wild 12:26:00 PM |

YOU GIVE ME FEVER

posted by Wild 10:56:00 AM |

The Morning of the Yellow Sun

I opened my eyes and looked around the room.

The morning sun lit the windows and walls with a pale yellow sheen. I pulled away my sheets and swung my feet to the floor. My ankles felt stiff from the rough season of rugby that had just ended.

I looked over at my brother who slept in the bed across the room. He didn't stir.

I stood up and started towards the window when a loud knock rattled the front door of the house.

I froze.

My brother sat up with a jolt. "What was that?" he asked.

"Someone is at the door", I whispered.

I opened the bedroom door as my mother came down the hall. "Who could that be?" , she asked with a worried tone in her voice. "It is 6.00 am".

We rushed to a room that overlooked the front of the house.

Peering through the blinds we could see a military truck in the driveway with five or six uniformed soldiers taking positions around our yard with rifles aimed at our doorway.

The heavy knock was repeated and a harsh voice instructed us to open the door.

We all looked at each other in surprise.

Stumbling down the flight of stairs, we crowded into the foyer and opened the door.

That rising sun which lit our highland home had ushered in the last day of our innocence.

posted by Wild 11:54:00 PM |

INTERESTING

THE AMAZING Kurt Goedel

Can you imagine a mathematical theorem that makes people consider jumping out of a window? Some mathematicians did (although none is known to have actually jumped!) when in 1931 Kurt Goedel showed that every formal logical system must contain propositions not provable in that system. A particular cause of consternation among some mathematicians was that Goedel's incompleteness theorem implies that not all mathematical questions are computable.


Kurt Goedel was born in what is now Brno, Czech Republic. As a child Kurt was known as Der Herr Warum ("Mr. Why") because of his insatiable curiosity. He excelled not only in math but also in languages, history, philosophy, and physics. After having studied and taught in Vienna, he emigrated to the United States and joined the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton in 1940.

The basic idea behind Goedel's incompleteness theorem is rather simple: A formula claims that it is unprovable. If it were provable, it would be false, contradicting the fact that provable statements are always true. So there will always be at least one true but unprovable statement. Goedel had a deep friendship with Albert Einstein, who was also at Princeton. Towards the end of his life Einstein confided that "his own work no longer meant much, that he came to the Institute merely to have the privilege of walking home with Goedel."

It is rare that one person - a mathematician or otherwise - could be an inspiration to someone as iconic as Einstein. Goedel was such a person.

(Via Wicked Thoughts)

posted by Wild 12:10:00 PM |

THE FINAL SOLUTION

Even right-wingers who know that "global warming" is a crock do not seem to grasp what the tree-huggers are demanding. Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.Forget the lunacy of people claiming to tell us the precise temperature of planet Earth in 1918 based on tree rings. Or the fact that in the '70s liberals were issuing similarly dire warnings about "global cooling."Simply consider what noted climatologists Al Gore and Melissa Etheridge are demanding that we do to combat their nutty conjectures about "global warming." They want us to starve the productive sector of fossil fuel and allow the world's factories to grind to a halt. This means an end to material growth and a cataclysmic reduction in wealth.

There are more reputable scientists defending astrology than defending "global warming," but liberals simply announce that the debate has been resolved in their favor and demand that we shut down all production.They think they can live in a world of only Malibu and East Hampton -- with no Trentons or Detroits. It does not occur to them that someone has to manufacture the tiles and steel and glass and solar panels that go into those "eco-friendly" mansions, and someone has to truck it all to their beachfront properties, and someone else has to transport all the workers there to build it. (And then someone has to drive the fleets of trucks delivering the pachysandra and bottled water every day.)Liberals are already comfortably ensconced in their beachfront estates, which they expect to be unaffected by their negative growth prescriptions for the rest of us.

There was more energy consumed in the manufacture, construction and maintenance of Leonardo DiCaprio's Malibu home than is needed to light the entire city of Albuquerque, where there are surely several men who can actually act. But he has solar panels to warm his house six degrees on chilly Malibu nights.

Liberals haven't the foggiest idea how the industrial world works. They act as if America could reduce its vast energy consumption by using fluorescent bulbs and driving hybrid cars rather than SUVs. They have no idea how light miraculously appears when they flick a switch or what allows them to go to the bathroom indoors in winter -- luxuries Americans are not likely to abandon because Leo DiCaprio had solar panels trucked into his Malibu estate.

Our lives depend on fossil fuel. Steel plants, chemical plants, rubber plants, pharmaceutical plants, glass plants, paper plants -- those run on energy. There are no Mother Earth nursery designs in stylish organic cotton without gas-belching factories, ships and trucks, and temperature-controlled, well-lighted stores. Windmills can't even produce enough energy to manufacture a windmill.

Because of the industrialization of agriculture -- using massive amounts of fossil fuel -- only 2 percent of Americans work in farming. And yet they produce enough food to feed all 300 million Americans, with plenty left over for export. When are liberals going to break the news to their friends in Darfur that they all have to starve to death to save the planet?"Global warming" is the left's pagan rage against mankind. If we can't produce industrial waste, then we can't produce. Some of us -- not the ones with mansions in Malibu and Nashville is my guess -- are going to have to die. To say we need to reduce our energy consumption is like saying we need to reduce our oxygen consumption.

Liberals have always had a thing about eliminating humans. Stalin wanted to eliminate the kulaks and Ukranians, vegetarian atheist Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate poor blacks, DDT opponent Rachel Carson wanted to eliminate Africans (introduction to her book "Silent Spring" written by ... Al Gore!), and population-control guru Paul Ehrlich wants to eliminate all humans.

But global warming is the most insane, psychotic idea liberals have ever concocted to kill off "useless eaters." If we have to live in a pure "natural" environment like the Indians, then our entire transcontinental nation can only support about 1 million human beings. Sorry, fellas -- 299 million of you are going to have to go.

Proving that the "global warming" campaign is nothing but hatred of humanity, these are the exact same people who destroyed the nuclear power industry in this country 30 years ago. If we accept for purposes of argument their claim that the only way the human race can survive is with clean energy that doesn't emit carbon dioxide, environmentalists waited until they had safely destroyed the nuclear power industry to tell us that. This proves they never intended for us to survive."

Global warming" is the liberal's stalking horse for their ultimate fantasy: The whole U.S. will look like Amagansett, with no one living in it except their even-tempered maids (for "diversity"), themselves and their coterie (all, presumably, living in solar-heated mansions, except the maids who will do without electricity altogether). The entire fuel-guzzling, tacky, beer-drinking, NASCAR-watching middle class with their over-large families will simply have to die.

It seems not to have occurred to the jet set that when California is as poor as Mexico, they might have trouble finding a maid. Without trucking, packaging, manufacturing, shipping and refrigeration in their Bel-Air fantasy world, they'll be chasing the rear-end of an animal every time their stomachs growl and killing small animals for pelts to keep their genitals warm.

- By Ann Coulter (Via Small Dead Animals Blog)

posted by Wild 6:21:00 PM |

ALL THE BEST IN THE NEW YEAR

posted by Wild 2:09:00 PM |

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

posted by Wild 6:04:00 PM |

PERPLEXING NATION

In a busy Parisian cafe, a tourist is sitting alone, enjoying a crème
caramel. Another tourist approaches:

Me sit here?

No problem...

Thank you, very nice...

Are you on vacation?

Me, I arrive yesterday...

What country are you from?

Norway. You?

From Quebec.

Quebec? Me not know Quebec...

Quebec... near the Atlantic, next to Ontario, the Great Lakes...

No, me not know these places.

Never mind then, I'm from Canada...

Ah! Canada! Canada I know! So why you tell me you come from Quebec?

Because, my first country is Quebec!

Oh, you were born in Quebec and immigrated to Canada....

No, no, I was born in Quebec and I stay in Quebec...

Oh, then your father is from Canada?

No, no, my father, my mother, my wife, my dog, everybody, they come from
Quebec....

So why you say Canada?

Because you say you don't know where is Quebec!

OK, but if you say you not know Norway, me I not say that my country is
Japan...

Shit! Canada isn't Japan. Canada, it's my country.

Oh, your country not Quebec anymore?...

My country is Quebec. But my country, it can be Canada too, if the person I
speak to not know where is Quebec, Tabarnak!

Me not understand...

Look, it's simple: I come from the Province of Quebec, in the country of
Canada.

Ok! But me not ask you what province you're from, I ask you what country.
Me, I come from Lofoten region in Norway, but I answer you Norway when you
ask me what country I come from...

I know, I'm not stupid, Coulisse! But me, when they ask me what country I
come from, I answer Quebec. Even if it's the name of my province. For me,
it's my country.

Oh, now I understand. You are a separatist, you want your Quebec province
to be your country...

Are you crazy, Hostie? I don't want to know nothing from that shit!

Me, I not understand anything anymore.

I tell you before, it's simple! You ask me what country I come from, I
answer Quebec because Quebec is my country, but I don't really want it to
be my country, it would be too much trouble. I just want to say it. So, why
don't you just let me say it?

Me all mix up. You have passport from what country: Quebec or Canada?

CANADA, Hostie!

So why you not tell me Canada right away?

Because it don't feel right. For me, Canada is Anne Murray, the Calgary
Stampede, the Mounted Police, SARS, it's not my home all that. Home, it's
La Famille Plouffe, Saraphin Poudrier, La P'tite Vie, Falix Leclerc, La Poune,
Les Canadiens de Montreal, Les Bougons... Do you understand???

Less and less...

Listen, forget all that shit. Ask me another question.

Ok, what town you come from?

Mmm..., I don't know anymore...

You not know what town you come from?

Yes, yes, I know what town I come from, but my town it merge with another
town, but soon it is going to demerge from the town that was supposed to be
my town...

Oh, that very complicated! When you write your address, what do you write?

I don't know anymore. Before, I used to write Hull, but Hull changed to
Gatineau, but they tell us to wait 3 years before stopping to write Hull to
not mix up the mailman. But now, the Liberals they pass a law that make it
ok for Gatineau to be Hull again, but I don't know if we have to wait 3
years to be able to write Hull, or when the 3 years are passed, if we have
to write Gatineau for 3 years, and after we write Hull. Unless, of course,
the PQ come back in power and we remerge with Gatineau, then we'll have to
write Gatineau for 3 years. I leave now; I have hurt in my head... It's so
simple Tabarnak: My town is Hull, my country is Quebec. But if you prefer,
my town is Gatineau and my country is Canada.

OK, I think I understand!

It's about time. Anyway, it was fun talking to you, if you come around
where I live; maybe you come and see me...

OK, but where? Hull in Quebec or Gatineau in Canada?

You're a pain in the ass. Forget the whole thing

That, my friends, is the portrait of Quebec!

(Stolen from a friend) :)

posted by Wild 1:43:00 PM |

IS AMERICA THE NEW SPAIN?

Over the last few years, terrorists have been blowing men, women and children to fragments in hopes of weakening the U.S resolve in the war on terror.

By carrying out a continuous stream of barbarous mayhem, these extremists were able to discourage the American people and send them into retreat.

When Spain ventured into the War on Terror, terrorists calculated that a few bombs would compel the Spaniards to vote for a political party that was not hostile to terrorists.

They calculated right. The Spaniards, within a few days of the bombings, voted resoundingly for a pacifist and leftist party. Spain was no longer a partner in the war on terror.

To their credit, Americans remained firmly behind the war efforts for three election cycles but yesterday, the hardworking terrorists of Iraq finally got their wish: A U.S Government with no will to keep fighting the threat of terror that swirls the globe.

Spain, the U.K and the U.S.A have now backed down and it can be expected that the other countries that were firmly on board like Canada and Australia will have a harder time rousing themselves for the fight now that the Americans have decided to take a nap.

All the countries of the coalition against terror like Poland, Pakistan, Poland and even the Netherlands are now going to look at each other sheepishly and wonder why they followed the Americans into a war they had no intention of completing.

Snickering imams the world over will marvel at the ease with which they brought the powerful angry United States into passive submission.

Is America the new Spain? Yes.

My trouble is this: If the Americans were so easy to bring into abject submission, how much easier will it be to do the same to Canada, Poland or Australia?

posted by Wild 8:15:00 PM |

TALKING TO OUR REPTILIAN BRAINS

In order to gain political power, you must gain the attention of those over whom you wish to have power.

In order to gain the attention of those over whom you wish to have power, you must be effective in communication.

In order to be effective in communication, you must understand the people with whom you are trying to communicate.

One of the most important keys to understanding the people with whom you are trying to communicate is to remember that people are divided into two main groups....the 'rational group' and the 'reptilian group'.

In order to gain political power, you must correctly decide which of the two groups you must communicate with in order to gain the mass of support you need to propel you to your goal.

This decision is relatively easy when either of the two groups is significantly larger than the other.

If most of the people you wish to have power over belong to the "rational" group, you must make rational arguments in order to communicate with them in your attempt to appeal to them. Public debates over proposed policies are an effective method of communicating with a largely rational population.

On the other hand, if the people you wish to have power over are mostly from the reptilian mindset, you must appeal to a primal non-reasoning part of their brains that respond to a different type of communication.

This type of communication occurs at a sub-rational level where the corporeal world is brought into sharp focus and the abstract world of language and thought are dimmed.

Allow me to contrast the two methods of communication by posing the theoretical conundrum of foreign threat.

1) Rational proposal to lead a country to strengthen national defense

• Because of the rising threat of our violent neighbor, our country must commit resources to intelligence gathering and border patrols. I am dedicated to idea of defending our country by committing resources to protecting it from attack. Vote for me.

2) Reptilian proposal to lead a country to strengthen national defense

• Because of the rising threat of our violent neighbor, our country is full of fear. Vote for me because I am very tall and I have a fierce look on my face. I have very thick arms.

As you can see, one politician appeals to the rational mind that can understand that more border patrols will likely reduce the chance of violent intrusion by the violent neighbor.

The other politician appeals to the people at such a low level that it is not even necesary to use words to communicate. This politician needs only to present an image of himself towering over his opponent. Each member of his reptilian audience, fearful of the threatening country, forms an imprint of the larger looking candidate. Each person becomes attached to and supports that candidate for the position of power.

To such audiences, it does not matter that the candidate, though large, can be felled by a single bullet rendering him unable to defend them. It does not matter to them that a single man, no matter how physically impressive, cannot hold back an invading army if rational strategies of defense are not used.

To this audience, the same automatic imprinting that attaches a duckling to its mother is at work to attach them to the large candidate.

In a fully rational country, it would never be necesary to see candidates (TV) or even to hear them speak (radio). To transmit ideas in a rational world, it would only be necesary for candidates to publish books and papers carrying their ideas and proposals. The population of such a country would only need to read and understand the ideas in order to make rational decisions on who to support. It would be entirely unnecesary to see the physical attributes of the candidate. A rational person would not be swayed by the candidates tan (Kennedy) or the shining health of his or her hair (John Edwards).

It saddens me write that our western civilization, once hinged on rationality, is now returning to the age of primal communication. More and more politicians, having discovered that voters are easily swayed by physical attributes, are now using reptilian communication as the kingpin of their campaign strategies.

Presidential candidate from 2000, Al Gore is a classic example of a politician who decided to communicate in a reptilian way. The picture above was published as the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine. The image was famously air brushed in the area of the groin to enhance the appearance of his genital package. In the minds of his campaign strategists, his reptilian audience (seeking fruitfulness, sensuality, virility and oversight over their lives) would see Al Gore's enhanced genital package and be imprinted by the package and subsequently by him. This group would then follow Al Gore to the voting booth and award him with political power.

Judging from Al Gore's performance in the Presidential race of 2000, I would dare to guess that there were enough people imprinted by Al Gore's genitalia to give him a majority of the votes cast in that election. Of course there is no way to know this but the graphic method of reptilian communication seems to have made an impression with the next serious Democratic contender for President.

Photo via Wiz Bang

This sculpture of Hillary Clinton was recently 'unveiled' at the New York Museum of Sex. The artist said that he wanted to convey his subject "as a woman — not a covered-up person, but as a woman."

I, on the other hand, say that he conveyed what his subject and her strategists told him to convey.

Clinton and her strategists, having settled on a plan to communicate in the language of reptiles, commissioned an artist to create a image of Hillary Clinton that would project an impression of bountiful milk and copious supply. The sculture projects the subject as fecund and noble while pre-supposing the subject's title of the "First woman President of the United States of America". This effort to speak directly to the medula oblongata of the population has been used by aspiring leaders for many centuries.

Compare the sculpture of Hillary to this one of a Hindu "Mother Goddess" from about 1 B.C.

Via Columbia Edu

Both sculptors enhance the breasts to communicate the primal code for nourishment. In large countries, it can hardly be expected that the breasts of a single woman could supply all the nutritional needs of the population so it is clearly a sub-rational impulse to follow a leader purely based on the forwardness of her breasts.

In a rational world, even a skinny, shriveled and disabled male would be able to inspire the population with ideas on how to enhance dairy production in his country by reducing taxes on farmers. In such a country, the candidate would not need to have a sculpture of himself oozing 2% milk from his every orifice to communicate his association with bountiful agricultural policies.

Our education system is becoming less a training ground for rational thought and more a nursery for amplifying the value of emotional reactions to reality. Because of this sad fact, upcoming generations will be less inclined (or even able) to listen to rational propositions and more likely to respond to sub-rational projections.

Future candidates able to convey the largest breasts or the deepest voice or the largest genital package or the shiniest hair or the brownest tan (and maybe even all of the aforementioned) will imprint huge swaths of the population without the pronouncement of a single word.

These candidates will merely release suggestive photos of themselves in unspeakable poses or have greatly exaggerated sculptures of themselves set in the public square.

Unfortunately for such generations, those who promise economic relief or security on the strength of their physical attributes will more often than not entirely fail to deliver.

posted by Wild 5:58:00 PM |

SELL, SELL, SELL

Castro, the Cuban dictator of almost 50 years, appears to be dead or a least very close to it.

What does this mean?

It means that his brother Raul will inherit total power over Cuba. It also means that an untidy scuffle will follow that will quickly lead to the fall of the Communist Party.

The U.S and other parties are likely maneuvering behind the scenes to get a populist revolt underway to try force the creation of a democratic Cuban state.

So what should you sell?

All your holdings in Las Vegas.

A free Cuba will quickly become the hottest destination spot at the expense of Las Vegas.

posted by Wild 10:00:00 AM |

CASTRO DEAD?

It certainly sounds like it.

Check this blog and this one.

If this is true, an opportunity for a push against the Communist regime may present itself.

The Bush Admin and others had better be on the ball on this one.

Via Ah Shoot blog.

posted by Wild 9:33:00 PM |

THE TEN STEPS TO "PERPETUAL PEACE"

Because of the mindless shelling by Islamic terrorist organizations, Israel has found itself in the position of having to wage a hot war in Lebanon. Hot wars are politically difficult to conduct (in democratic countries) but Israel has no choice but to try disperse the enemies that have been gathering at her borders.

Israel will succeed in weakening these enemies and will no doubt bring conditions about that make her neighbors think twice about hosting terror organizations.

Tragically, this short term success will spring into motion the age-old mechanism used by Islamic organizations to avoid total annihilation.

Here is how the mechanism works:

1) Israeli military action threatens to totally discredit the Jihadists. An offer of 'peace' percolates up through the Islamic and Western 'sponsors' and into the United Nations. Islamicists swear that the peace offer will silence the guns and keep the suicide bombers at home.

2) When Israel pauses to listen to the proposal of peace, a set of conditions is attached to the proposal that demands a geographic shrinkage of the Israeli landmass.

3) Israel makes a counter-offer that reduces the amount of area that Israel must shrink by

4) Jihadists agree to the counter-offer but warn that there are 'factions' that will not be happy with the 'compromise'

5) With smiling faces and warm handshakes, pictures are taken of the historic peace agreement

6) Unhappy 'factions' continue their bombing campaigns and kill more Israelis

7) The peace-loving world demands that Israel restrain herself so that peace gets a chance to take hold

8) More Israelis are kidnapped and blown up by suicide murderers

9) Israel gets angry and defends herself militarily

10) Israeli military action threatens to totally discredit the Jihadists. An offer of 'peace' percolates up through the Islamic and Western 'sponsors' and into the United Nations. Islamicists swear that the peace offer will silence the guns and keep the suicide bombers at home.


We are back where we started.

Israel's easiest way to break the cycle of violence is to simply ignore the "peace" offer that is no doubt about to be offered. Israel could theoretically pound the Jihadists to a pulp in southern Lebanon in a way that would significantly delay it's re-appearance.

However, it will be very difficult for Israel to conduct the war after the Americans have called for them to shut down operations. The Bush administration is probably acting as slowly as possible to give Israel time to exact some damage on terror groups but the U.S. is under it's own political pressure and is going to have to make a move to quell the fight sometime time soon and when they do, Israel is simply going to have to comply and adhere to a ceasefire.

So what is Israel to do?

Well, the best bet for Israel is to withdraw her troops from Lebanon without being drawn into a 'peace' negotiation and perhaps even before the U.S makes a formal demand for cessation of military action.

Israel must simply claim that her military objectives have been met and withdraw from Lebanon. Israel must make clear that she reserves the right to return if Jihadists setup shop again.

Without a hot war in the news, "peace brokers" will go home and leave Israel alone.

Without a 'peace' agreement to comply with, Israel is free to take actions against threats as they emerge rather than waiting for "peace to take hold".

With the cost of hosting Jihadists so high, countries will not be tempted to give Hezbollah and other groups free range over their lands bordering Israel.


Update: Drudge just reported that Hezbollah only has a few missile launchers remaining. This means that the "peace offer" is about to make an appearance.

Update 2: However, Israel has just signaled cessation of Air Force action and has reserved the right to resume attacks if any threats mount.

Israel may be on the path to breaking the cycle of violence after all.

posted by Wild 12:03:00 PM |

READ THIS


By Spanish writer Sebastian Villar Rodriguez

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretence of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride. They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs. What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe. [Or at least by its many antisemites, of whom Nazis were only one manifestation]

(stolen from Dissecting Leftism blog)

posted by Wild 10:59:00 PM |

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