gold in ied

RULE OF LAW

Finally some sanity. The Supreme wisdom of 5 people but echoed by many with a D in front of their names, and implied D's in front of their names - as in the case of journalists, has been presented to the Benighted. Terrorists finally get their day in court - show the corpse - er wait (the people the terrorists blew up?) Strange is it not, how the Supremes bring foreign law into the US or extend Constitutional Law outside our Nations borders and citizens, whichever suits their fancy - almost like they are making it up as they go along. Now, Now, their vision is quite consistent, its just not consistent with the Declaration of Independence, or US Constitution, or the Founding Fathers, nor Natural Law theory. Its a unique elixir of Marxism, Fabianism, Progressivism, and Pacifism. It is definitely not the rule of law. 65 senators approved the law of military tribunals that Kennedy the swinger threw out. Presidents conduct wars with oversight from Congress - except in the US where apparently there are now black robed generals. Now the military should take no prisoners...

In the glory days of the cold war, the US and Soviets faced off every 4 years in the Olympic games - except the boycott years. The Long War - the popular moniker for the war on terror - does not have the pizazz that the cold war did. Where is the space race between us and Al-Qaeda? Why no missile gaps or missile crisis or sputniks? Al-Qaeda, newly liberated from Guantanamo, needs an Olympic Team - we know they have been training!

belt drive

FASHION

Rosanne apparently free from having any type of career going at the time (singing the national anthem was definitely not an option), decided to donate time at the local charity. They were in the middle of a canned food drive and asked her to head the committee assigned for the winter clothing drive. This was prep work - right up her alley. She called the first committee meeting to order with the banging gavel struck three times. The last time was really loud and every one stood at a standstill. She blurted out "Everyone take your seats now c'mon!" Everyone discontinued their meaningless banter with their peers about the weather and who was doing what and they all promptly sat down. Rosanne announced that if anyone wanted to hear the minutes of the last meeting to speak up - but she kept rambling on about the business of the committee and no-one was given a chance to hear the minutes. She moved and seconded her own motion to scrap the winter clothing drive - seems how Santa Monica was not all that cold in the winter - she deemed the poor folk would have to make do with their summer clothes. She then proceeded onto the next topic of business: that being the drooping pants, boxers/thong showing issue. "Well," she declared, "I slapped DJ across the living room when he tried to leave the house looking like that." So she moved and seconded her own motion, that for fall, that they - the prestigious committee that is - would round up belts in a massive belt drive - to be dispersed to inner city poor kids and young adults who had a hard time keeping their pants up. Someone mentioned suspenders - but it was not heard among the ensuing ruckus.

aren't they dreamy

INTERNATIONS

It would appear that there are a lot of lonely politicians in the world - that they would love to talk and have more summits if only they were not so shy. Many dictators and tyrants are isolated and marginalized on the international scene, not getting the high level meetings they crave and need for their own good health and legitimacy. Also many in the media and ant-west faction of politics absolutely adore these types of totalitarian rulers - either admiring their economic (disasters) or anti-Bush rhetoric. Still others of a more compassionate bent believe with the proper dialogue they can be changed - like the hopeless (fatherfigureless) girl trying to save her bad-boy boyfriend. Well a good remedy would be an international pen pal / conversation partner program that could be administered by the U.N. It would match international thugs with bleeding heart modern liberals based on skills and needs. Imagine in addition to Nancy Pelosi/Bashar al-Assad there could be Barbra Boxer/Fidel Castro, Dianne Feinstein/Kim Jong Il, Hillary Clinton/Robert Mugabe, Katie Couric/Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, John Edwards/Hugo Chavez, all in the Madlin Albright/Yessir Arafat tradition. It could be chicken soup soul therapy for all involved.

jelly rubiks

PEOPLE

An interesting thought is to image people as the aura that surrounds them and how that interacts with the world. Some people would have a very soft spherical essence, with many feelers floating out to guide them through the obstacle course, like a jelly fish turned inside out. They could float onto mass transit with their feelers gripping the grab poles, wind their way through second hand book stores, and on to the protest rally - the main orgy - a big cesspool of jelly. Everyone would be oozing out of their feelers, all entangled, many aura's then becoming one entity. The new entity would send out pulsing waves and just sort of chill their (there?) vibrating but not quite shivering. When the deed was complete, the one entity would mist back into several jelly creatures upon leaving - slimming their way back home leaving trails of excrement like slugs or snails. Other peoples aura would resemble a Rubiks Cube with legs. They would hop into their sports cars down to the country club - to exchange the banal networking talk. Some of the cubes would be completed - each of the six sides a solid color. The more immature ones would be in different stages of completion with the baby rubiks being all random, each of the nine squares out of sequence. With each new connection the sequence becomes more in order. With their hard exterior they would rely on brute strength to power through brick walls like the Kool-Aid pitcher "OH YEAH!!"

overrated democracy

CHINA

China and India are the growing powers that are attracting all the attention - but who will win the title as heir-apparent of the pax-americana if the U.S. gets too soft. India, the worlds largest democracy, benefits greatly from anglosphere institutions and language - but has a recent past mired in the Fabian Society. Their development could mirror the decline of the west - under-productive, over-socialist. China also relatively newly independent has a communist past but capitalist future. The greatest potential (good or bad to be determined) lies in China because of their one party rule. Democracy is overrated, it should be viewed as a means not an end. If China's one party wrote a constitution, inspired by Locke but even more progressive proof than the American's, then they could easily become a global hegemone and the world would be better off for it. This theoretical constitution could embrace life, liberty and property in a way only dreamed about by the wests classical liberals - just as Hong Kong is more capitalistic than any nation in the west. Right now China has just unrealised raw potential but history shows that even the near future can be wildly unpredictable.

packing a 9mm

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muse from wit

COLONIALISM

Capitulation resulting in vassalage was branded colonialism by the so-called natives in many lands, and they revolted against this control in the heart of darkness. But was it a wise move? Maybe colonialism should be restarted, if the subjugated agree to it by the subjugator. One would judge by results, and the results of native independence movements have not always been good (ref: sub Sahara.) Many so called former colonies are now worse off than under imperial rule. Even the success stories were made greater successes, as in the case of India; without their former master would they have gotten rid of sati? Did not Rome allow free local religion as long as no humans were sacrificed. This is treated as an imposition on culture by the multiculturalists. Japan was an imperial power raping Manchuria china - an act seen as illegitimate. But after the bomb Japan was corrected, put in its place, made a vassal of the U.S. and this was judged legitimate by its results. So clearly not all claims on the use of force are equal. The feudal lord created modern Japan democratically in its image, and it is now a peaceful productive society, instead of a war monger, made so by the benevolent rule of the u.s. Even though subservient to their feudal lord in security matters, they are still a sovereign nation in all other regards, only submitting for protection because its in their own self interest.

reject social contract

JOHN RAWLS

Rawls social contract theory of rights appears to be a reasonable argument on first glance, but after further evaluation it doesn't hold up in a few key categories. His social contract theory is what kind of government institutions would be needed and legitimate if one did not know what station in life one was going to be born into, present theories being biased toward advantaging ones current status. He presumes all rational people could agree on the same principles, but this would actually lead to branding of people as irrational if they disagreed. (Could one not wish to be left to starve to death if one did not work or is this irrational?) This theory lacks continuity in time, seeing how ones answers to the question would vary quite considerably pre and post industrial revolution, and into the unforeseen future. It also relies heavily on peoples present biases against disability, poverty, and dumbness to presumably justify more government powers to alleviate these things. Also the theory may hold up for one time era but is not geographically universal; the world has a lot of people and it would be impossible for all of them to have social contract derived rights because of limited resources and unlimited material wants. The theory is an attempt to justify redistributive 'rights'(wealth) claims and is therefore just an imaginary government as social insurance agency, playing God, removing individuals freedom of responsibility.

nature nuture soul

GENETICS AND FREE CHOICE

The progressive view regarding where human actions originate from is a non individual fault proposition. Biology is discounted by progressives (radicals not to long ago believed that even gender traits were learned) believing in a blank slate that is written on by environment - genome project be damned. These progressive environmentalists also discount the human soul sometimes even denying its existence. Common people do not make their own choices - that is the duty of elites. They believe if only humans were born and raised in a nurturing environment all would be well. Society at large is responsible for all evil - systemic triumphantalism. They wish to strictly control this developmental environment - and resort to their beloved scientific modeling and government coercion tactics (it takes a village i.e. the state). All is chance and random - there is no higher purpose in their vision - and they have received their superior vision for society not from their soul, or derived from reason, but through sheer emotional revelation. This religious wishful thinking dictates 'these people would not choose this for themselves, lets help them with what they really want.' Contrary to this vision are the soulful who believe humans are judged on their own self actualization and will to change the inherent path of fate that biology and environment try to dictate - a hierarchy of powers is prevalent. Biology is cruel - quite the opposite of egalitarian values - people are born with vastly different skills and flaws. These are very innate irregardless of environment - environment being mostly just the expression of ones biology. However, personal responsibility and accountability still exist as articulaters and arbiters of ones genetically encoded fate. At some point in ones life, while climbing maslow's pyramid, the soul has the potential to be expressed if the individual wants to modify, although not completely able to escape fate. This is everyones mission if they are willing to choose it, before they self destruct.

brave new cell research

STEM CELLS

Now with these stem cells they can clone one person and repeat multiple times (how egalitarian). That way everyone would be equal (and identical). Don't worry multiculturalism won't go away. Everyone will be randomly assigned a culture (so poverty tourists can still travel the world to see other colorful cultures). Disease, disability, physical and mental diversity finally conquered by the new immortals! Now who do we pick as the archetypal human? To be fair and eliminate the (societal imposed) differences between the sexes we need a hermaphrodite, capable of reproducing with either sex organ (although reproduction would only be needed every thousand years or so with the immortal clones having a right to die with dignity). Preferably someone who is a cross in equal proportions of all the worlds ethnicitys (which are constructs anyways). A little genetic modification will insure that the offspring of the clones don't regress to the former mean. In case some of the clones and/or their offspring gain an unfair advantage and express differences from the others (other than assigned culture) the state would step in and naturally select the deviants to be neutralized.

the melting world

SOCIALISM

An idea for another world way off somewhere, is for the planet to have receding ice sheets that expose new land with more/less the same natural resources in abundant supply as the already exposed land. And suppose that this was occurring at roughly a country size area every generation of people. That way it could be decided by custom that each new area would be inhabited by a new group of people, since there would be no need for competition of resources (lets pretend that offensive military actions are easily defeated by defenses). Each new country, founded in the newly melted area, would be free to adopt whatever political, social, economic, system that evolved there. That way direct comparisons could be made between the countries as to what system worked best. Most likely nobody would agree on what the measurements should be so every country would in their own mind be the best. Of course the socialist countries would have to build walls around themselves to keep their people in, not wanting them to wander off into a less caring unequal society.

free parking

FIAT MONEY

Money is mostly worthless: paper money that is. By chance people think its worth something because the government does not print too much of it. Sometimes they do and then you need a wheelbarrow to haul your worthless loot around. I'd like to be paid in airplane parts if that is what the company i worked for made. Not the actual part but some certificate of ownership. The company that bought the part would pay for it with certificates shares to whatever it made: airplanes. They would sell the airplanes to airliners who would pay in tickets. Therefore i could trade my shares in parts for tickets. This kind of relationship could be replicated throughout the entire world economy therefore removing the problem of fiat money. This would make money very fluid and eliminate the problems of inflation and it costing money to produce money. Also wages should be negotiated on a weekly basis eliminating the problem of wages not being as flexible to respond to market conditions. This would make the market very efficient and provide instant feedback loops through prices of shares. All markets would clear almost instantly. Instead we roll along with the governments monopoly on play money.

neo gravity

GUT OF PHYSICS

See I think gravity is because everything is getting bigger at a rate proportional to its mass. The earth is getting bigger at a rate of 32ft per second, and after one second the yardstick is now bigger so its actually accelerating 32ft per sec per sec. The fact that the further away from earth an object is, the faster it is moving may be explained by the fact that the further you look into space the further in the past you are looking when the universe was expanding due to the big bang. I still need to work out a few kinks because this does not explain objects orbiting each other and how the speed of light appears constant (maybe photons are stationary and mass is moving), its just that I don't like the graviton.