Environmentalism: 99.99% Pure Unadulterated BS

I've always enjoyed Michael Crichton's novels. From the time I first read the Andromeda Strain to Congo to Jurassic Park and everything in between, he has always been an author who prides himself on novels of fiction based in fact. Let me repeat that, based in fact I say.

And that is one of the major reasons his books (which net him millions) almost always get made into movies (which net him even more millions). People like reading fiction and actually learning something that makes sense at the same time. True, some of his books have events and things which aren't necessarily common place or scientifically feasible at the moment, yet they are deeply rooted in the foundations of contemporary scientific knowledge. This is an important distinction.

So when I heard he was coming out with a book whose central theme was the environment, I naturally welcomed the thought rather than doing everything in my power to forget it (as I typically do with anything "mainstream" relating to the environment). Mr. Crichton spent three years on research before writing "State of Fear", and nary a page goes by that he doesn't prove it.

And for those who are skeptical at best, here's a speech derived from the underpinnings of the novel's content as an appetizer to the veritable seven course meal he dishes out in the book. Pay attention, and enjoy.

Remonetization

An anonymous poster named "John Law", put this lengthy essay up recently concerning what he feels is an inevitable event in the coming future: the remonetization of precious metals, i.e. gold & silver most notably.

Remonetization has two prerequisites. One is a free public market in one or more monetizable commodities – such as gold and silver. The other is an unstable and mismanaged official currency – such as the US dollar.

In theory, reversing either of these factors could prevent remonetization. In practice this is probably impossible.

Before a remonetization event, the austerity measures necessary to fix the dollar are politically unlikely. Afterward they would be too late. And any preemptive deliberalization of the gold and silver markets would have to come with a remarkably convincing excuse to avoid triggering what it sought to prevent, especially since the US no longer dominates the global financial system.

The best way for the US and other countries to deal with this situation is to accept remonetization and manage it wisely. This will cause a lot of short-term pain for many people. But it will rebalance the global economy, and should lead to a new period of sustainable prosperity.

It's an interesting read if nothing else. I've long thought that a period of extreme inflation, similar to but potentially a lot worse than the inflation seen during the 1970's, was heading our way. But whether this reveals itself in the near term as what basically amounts to a panic run on gold and silver as the only standards people will look to if and when they lose faith in the dollar is not quite certain in my mind.

To my way of thinking, if the dollar collapses, remonetization is a moot point. I would venture to say that the majority of gold is not nearly as well distributed as the dollar. This is a generality of course, but true none-the-less. If all of a sudden people can't use their bucks to buy a cup of coffee, two things will happen: 1) the coffee store will close and 2) the guy who wants the coffee will simply do without OR find another means of getting the coffee. In real terms, that method of getting the coffee is more likely to be an impromptu bartering system, rather than a rush to start weighing out specs of gold.

But, he does make some valid points and I for one am no economist. The state of the world economy though in relation to our growing debt, massive social program list and an increasingly violent foreign policy make me uneasy. Anyway, read the whole article…..it's something to think about.

Ghetto Politics

Some whack job in Arizona is trying to get a measure passed that would award $1 million to a randomly selected voter after each public election.

Now I think this is a stupid idea purely on the grounds that it promotes voting not as a civic duty that we have to elect qualified individuals to represent us or as a pragmatic action taken by the shrewd individual to help ensure a public policy which truly represents his views, but as yet another way to potentially get rich for doing nothing. So while I think this method of getting voters to turn out sets a poor precedent indirectly in terms of the inherent value of voting, I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist over it either.

But as I was sitting here watching CNBC (accidentally I might add), I see the bow-tie boy himself Tucker Carlson attempting to debate this issue with the whack job. And lo and behold, lil' Tuck actually had the beans to say the following:

"Well, look, don‘t you think, since lotteries are ridiculous…I mean, truly, a lottery is a tax on the foolish. I mean, you‘re not going to win the lottery. Isn‘t this exactly the thing that kind of gimmick that draws exactly the kind of people who you don‘t want voting?"

"How about this. Wouldn‘t it be easier just to give away malt liquor? Why not just give out, you know, 40 ounces of Old English 800?"

Now I'm the last person in the world you probably want to argue with about being politically correct, cause it's a waste of time. But his statement is just way out of line. I mean, to think that someone in America today could think in such a manner is beyond comprehension. The poor in America would never roll out en masse for pee-water like OE….no, the poor of America have standards, they only drink Budweiser.

OTB Traffic Jam

What do a phony Ranger and Google have in common?

So I'm sitting on my couch tonight doing some light political reading. I mosey on over to Little Green Footballs and find an article about a young man named Jessie Macbeth, who apparently served as an Army Ranger for 16 months in Afghanistan/Iraq. Ok, no biggie there. But people are saying the 20 minute video he posted of himself basically admitting to war crimes (sound familiar?) is full of questionable things and REAL military people aren't buying his story.

Ok, so I read some commentary and other blogs talking about this apparent phony. I decide to do a little research myself. So I do a google for this exact search: "jessie macbeth" iraq

Immediately I get literally dozens of sites, mostly from left leaning blogs who at one point posted a link to the YouTube entry for this video and/or the main website hosting it (peacefilms.org), which is what I expected. So I notice from some other commentary sites that many of the sites hosting this video are starting to pull the video. Not uncommon in political snafus like this, nobody wants to be caught supporting a phony.

So I decide to start a little list of the biggest blogs that did a post on this guy, and I quickly realize that I don't have the Google Notebook plugin installed on my laptop because I recently re-installed the OS. So, I install the plugin for Firefox, close down the browser completely, then restart it. I go back and run the SAME search: "jessie macbeth" iraq. Only now, the results of that search look like this:

That's right, one stinking link to a french site that needs translating.  Now I know this wasn't what was returned just a few minutes ago.  For  one, I had already gone to the posts of SocialistAlternative.org and DyningWarriors.blogspot.com.  Secondarily, I just remember looking at the results thinking "wow, a lot of people bought into this", which also prompted me to want to use the Google Notebook feature to keep track of links as I went through and grabbed screenshots of each.

Anyway, I'm no conspiracy theorist….but for the life of me I cannot figure out where all the results of that search went? I would say that the search metrics in Google's algorithm were changed (as it was around midnight central time when the "odd behavior" occurred), however I just don't see how searching on two items, one an exact phrase could be changed so much in just a few minutes.

UC Irvine or Tehran?

Noted bigot Norman Finkelstein was the keynote at last week's "Holocaust in the Holy Land" put on by none other than the religion of peace's own Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine.

Finkelstein thus felt right at home at the annual Israel-bashing event at UC Irvine, a hotbed of anti-Israel activism. The Crystal Cove Auditorium where he delivered his remarks was at its maximum capacity, thanks in large part to the Muslim students who just weeks ago were at the same location protesting the College Republicans' showing the now-famous cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. Less controversial to them was the decision to use provocative titles like "Israel: The Fourth Reich" for the week's events. So long as it is confined to vilifying Israel, Muslim activists are staunch champions of free speech.

I hate to say it but I'm with Michael Savage on this one. Until and unless I start seeing the Muslim community the world over stand up and start villifying the terrorists and those who speak for them within their ranks, I'm going to go ahead and assume that these wretched people are merely the militant arm of those who are too yellow to say/do it themselves.

Chocolate Politics

Let me just start out by saying that I think Ray Nagin is probably hands down one of the most corrupt individuals I've ever witnessed on the public political stage in recent memory. Of course Henry Kissinger said that, "…corrupt politicians make the other 10% look bad…" so I certainly am not naive enough to believe the lie that most politicians are "good." I know better.

But the mere sight of Nagin during the whole Katrina/New Orleans debacle (and I say debacle in reference to Nagin & Blanco's complete non-handling of the situation) almost made my wife and I lose our lunch more than once. What a piece of slime.

I distinctly recall the man giving a press conference almost 24-48 hours BEFORE the hurricane had even hit declaring that he would be happy to get "even 20% of the population out of harm's way". T w e n t y p e r c e n t. Can you imagine any leader coming out and explicitly stating that he is giving up on the well being of 80% of his constituents?? It just boggles the mind. And yet nobody in the press called him on that; not before, not during, not after, not even way way after. And it wasn't just that comment. This elected human piece of excrement got so much of a pass that the people of New Orleans (or what is left of them) actually re-elected the very same guy who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people!

So let's recap:
(1) Fail to warn your citizens of impending danger
(2) Fail to use obvious resources a third grader could pick out to help save thousands of people when it becomes clear that they are in danger
(3) Hide in your hotel room not only during the storm, but immediately after it, and a while after that and a few days after it, etc, etc, etc.
(4) Fail to immediately make decisions to request federal assistance, cut red tape and encourage local officials to stand firm in protecting the innocent after the destruction of your city
(5) Blame the higher ups when it comes out that you were responsible for 1, 2, 3 & 4.
(6) Employ the use of racially charged speech to hype patently false notions that the lack of federal assistance (or the mere timing of it) was somehow directly related to race.
(7) Get sold out by your own party and raise just enough funds to carry out a Mickey Mouse campaign for re-election.
(8) Get re-elected by a margin slightly smaller than the width of a hair on your chinny chin chin.
(9) Come out and reprimand everyone "else" for "dividing" the city; call on "all peoples" to help rebuild (translate: give me money).

This apparently is a tried and true method for corrupt politicians to stay in power. It almost reminds me of the career and campaigns of the one and only Marion Barry. Simply unbelievable.

Apparently Nagin got 80% of the black vote and 20% of the white vote in the election. Let me spell that out for you in….well….black and white: Nagin received all of the votes in New Orleans by people who were too stupid, too addicted to the mother tit, too well paid or too dead to vote the other way. Unfortunately for New Orleans, the number of people in those categories outnumber those who are smart enough to spot a crook when they see one.

My advice: if you didn't move because of Katrina, move because of Nagin.

Ronaldo coming to MLS?

Word has it that Ronaldo, the Real Madrid and Brazilian star striker, may be considering a move to the MLS to play for the Red Bulls in New York. This is on par with the NASL signing Pele in 1975. Wow!

If you're not a soccer fan and have no clue who Ronaldo is, take a few minutes to watch this video of him (excuse the horrible music). Basically he is one of the premier strikers of the modern era, and depending on how he finishes out his career, perhaps one of the greatest to ever play the game. That is saying a lot when speaking of Brazilians (think Pele, Bebeto, Cafu, Romario, etc).

Basically the MLS teams have a salary cap of around $2 million. This would pose a problem a few seasons ago (since Ronaldo apparently makes around $8-10 million per season in Europe), however the MLS is instituting what is known as the "Beckham" rule, which allows each team to have a single high profile player whose salary does not count towards the cap.

This is the next logical step in the growth of MLS, if it is ever to realistically compete for players like Ronaldo in the prime of their careers. There probably will be no word of whether this news will come to fruition until after WC 06.

Soccer en Vogue

The marketeers never cease to amaze me in their willingness to try anything.

Here in America and at least in recent times, soccer hasn't enjoyed what one could call, with a straight face, success. In fact, American soccer history is riddled with regional turf wars, mismanagement and failed leagues which have resulted in what appears from the modern era to resemble a perfect sine wave.

One has to go back to the late teens and early 1920's to find what could realistically be called the Golden Era of American soccer. Both the American Soccer League and the National Football League were but fledglings at this point, however they were surprisingly equal in terms of franchises and fan attendance. The ASL averaged about 10,000 people per game, which doesn't sound like a lot until you remember it's 1920 and the total population of the USA was roughly 1/4 of what it is today.

But it was not to last. By the time the Great Depression was in full tilt the ASL began to fall apart at the seams. While the ASL was a relative powerhouse of a league for it's time (even by world standards), it wasn't the first to fail in America and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

In the mid 1960's American soccer enjoyed a resurgence of sorts. Soccer's grassroots base, especially in ethnic communities, along with the increase in popularity of spectator sports in general gave enough of a boost for the idea of again trying to unite the various regional soccer leagues into a top tier national league. The North American Soccer League was the final result of this interest. The league was by no means a national smash, however it culminated in 1975 with the signing of Pelé. Althoug Pelé had recently retired, he was still by far the most well known footballer in all the world (and probably still is). His entrance into the league inspired an increase in league investment and overall fan interest. But again, it was not to be. By 1985 both the NASL and the United Soccer League ("the other white meat") had failed.

Under these circumstances it would seem the last thing American soccer needed was to attempt a bid to host the World Cup. Yet that's exactly what the USSF did in 1987-88 for the 1994 tournament, which ultimately was successful. The result of the wildly successful 1994 Cup, which averaged over 65,000 per game, was the current incarnation of a professional, American soccer league: Major League Soccer.

Now in it's 10th year, even though the league is more popular then when it began, one could still be forgiven for thinking that American soccer is virtually non-existent. Granted, ESPN now actually shows soccer games, however the widespread acceptance of the game has been snail slow.

Which brings me to the entire point of this post. I recently saw an ad for a new movie coming out called "Goal!". It's your basic family feel good film, rated PG, which chronicles the journey of a young athlete from a rough neighborhood (in LA) to the grand pitch of the English Premier League. As I recall the list of movies about soccer that I've seen through the years, it seems that 80% of them have followed this same basic script. Well, now that I think about it….almost all movies about sports revolve around that central theme of those who cannot becoming those who can.

What is interesting about this particular movie, as opposed to all the others I remember, is that this one is being marketed as a major feature film. They're banking on the success of this film being directly related to the interest in this summer's World Cup, being hosted by Germany. For someone like myself, who has been playing the game since he was 4 years old and has loved it ever since, that might not be a bad bet. But for all those millions upon millions of "mainstream" Americans who have never truly accepted the game, it might be a joke. From my reading of history, I'd say one can make money off of soccer in the USA, but only if their timing is impeccable. So the marketeers behind this movie may strike gold once…but I'd bet my golden boots that they'll attempt it one too many times in the aftermath of the Cup's championship game.

And because they don't truly understand where soccer came from in the U.S. they won't understand that the interest they're banking on is just the latest in a long series of bubbles. The question is how many products, services and promotions will we see related to soccer in the coming months….and when will that interest pop?

Update: Time's opinion on the matter….the future of American sports??

Bushmaster Varminter

So Kode hooked me up with his gun dealer, and the guy got me a GREAT deal on this Bushmaster Varminter.
So far, this is what I’ve added:

– Tasco Super Sniper 10x fixed mil-dot scope from SWFA
– Leupold 30mm quick release rings
– Butler Creek flip open scope covers
– Harris bipod
– Tenebraex Super Sniper Kill-Flash

The gun is an amazing piece of weaponry, especially for the cost as compared to similar guns by other manufacturers (can you say Les Baer?). With the extras it is certainly not a “light” gun, however when you see what this thing can do in the field/on the range, you won’t mind lugging it around.

The week I purchased it, Bushmaster released a new model called the Predator. Basically the same gun, but with a 20″ barrel instead of the 24″ on the Varminter. I wondered whether I would have rather had the Predator when I first saw the specs, but after thinking about it some more I came to the conclusion that if I wanted a smaller gun that was easier to carry around I should just expect to pick up a carbine and scratch that itch.

Anyway, should you get a chance to fire one (or even better own one) I highly recommend it as a worthy companion for punching paper, but more importantly for ridding the countryside of pesky ‘yotes, groundhogs, prairie dogs and any other varmint that ain’t wearing kevlar.

       

I’m Back

I used to blog. Before it was really the "thing" to do. I enjoyed it for a while. But as everyone else started to get blogs, I fell into the trap that is pervasive in the current blogosphere which says that a blog must have a singular purpose. I had several blogs, each trying to hold sway over an area of my life I felt deserving of its own voice.

But I realized that the reason I didn't enjoy blogging anymore (besides the insane amount of change in my life when I stopped) was because I kept forcing myself to write only about topics which I felt would be applicable to the theme of the blog that lived in my mind. In reality, there was no theme for any of my sites, merely shadows of my whole self. Caricatures if you will, highlighting only what the blog's title would allow. The reality is that the people who did read my blog(s) did so mostly because of the information contained within the individual posts in which they personally had interest, not because there was a continuity (perceived or real) within the overall site.

I've enjoyed my hiatus. I'm enjoying thinking about blogging in a different light. I hope these things will allow me to produce consistent and interesting posts. If not, blame the Radical Wacko, it was his idea for me to return.