Mongol horse race - guaranteed to kill horses
The largest non-sanctioned endurance race ever attempted is set to be run this summer in Mongolia. Nearly a thousand under-sized native horses have been drafted into an effort which deliberately flaunts international endurance racing rules. Worse, none of the 25 amateur riders have any previous endurance riding experience and all will be riding Mongolian ponies they have never met before. No safety arrangements are provided by the promoter, no water or food for the ponies, inadequate numbers or no veterinarians - how many of the 800 equines will be dead before they reach the 1000 km line, how many more will die afterwards as a result of the abuse they will receive?
More at http://lifstrand.blogspot.com/
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Common Sense Uncommonly Rare
For millennia human beings survived and thrived because they used common sense. Those who didn’t enabled their own removal from the gene pool (they died). Maybe its just me, but it sure seems that the gene pool is getting a wee bit murky these days as whatever has contributed since the dawn of history to common sense is somehow fading away.
The disappearance of common sense from everyday life is a scary thing, if you ask me, because common sense is really the basis for the success of democracy. The founders of the USA were a pretty brilliant bunch, but they didn’t expect that everyone who was going to have a vote was going to be brilliant. In fact, democracy doesn’t require brilliance to succeed; it just needs good old common sense to keep it going and healthy.
The point of voting is to let everyone who is ruled by our government have a say in how that ruling is going to happen. This was a very bold, exciting concept back in the day, and it still is. Our brilliant founders knew that extremists would be moderated by the overwhelming mass of people who didn’t need brilliance or higher education to see the right thing to do. That’s because people then, who had to rely on common sense applied in their daily lives to survive, would apply that same common sense to identifying what was the right thing to do.
Thing is, it doesn’t take common sense any more to make it in our daily lives. With the mass withdrawal from fundamental interaction with nature (growing our own food, building our own houses, being responsible for our own safety) that has resulted from mechanization, technological innovation and the internet, we have lost the need for exercising our common sense. Industrial farming and the importing of so much of our food and other commodities means that fewer and fewer people in this country are connected to the real world. Fed by the fantasy world of TV, movies and video games, spending all day long indoors, has created a gap between what is real and possible, and what is desired - and the gap is growing faster and faster.
Simply put, most people just aren’t practicing the use of common sense any more because they don’t have to. So, like any other faculty that doesn’t get used, common sense is just dying out. Unfortunately, what we’re losing is what is needed to vote in something approaching a rational manner in order to maintain a living, healthy democracy. Without common sense, it all falls apart.
Today, our health, our well being, our communities, our society and our country are all going away so rapidly that it’s hard to see how things can be brought back to equilibrium again. We’re all being fed information that has so little connection to reality that it’s stunning. There is so little common sense being used that sometimes I wonder if we’ve been taken over by alien beings from another dimension. Such irrational behavior isn’t all that surprising, since that’s pretty much what has happened - just substitute media, government and political correctness for alien beings.
Really, coming up with a solution is tough, but it seems to me that a first step would be to return power to the people via local governments, because it’s obvious that locals know best about local issues. This means that locals should be the ones who implement federal and state programs in the places that they’re meant to be implemented. It’s only common sense that locals would do a good job of it as they have throughout history - because they’d be the ones who’d suffer if they screwed up.
You can’t force people to use their common sense, and you can’t expect people to suddenly begin using any faculty when it has become atrophied. Still, things have a way of balancing out over time. I’m hoping people wake up and shake themselves up on their own before too long, though, because as bad as it’s become, those who will be paying for the folly of this and past generations will be our children, their children and beyond. That’s not a legacy I’m happy about leaving for them.
The disappearance of common sense from everyday life is a scary thing, if you ask me, because common sense is really the basis for the success of democracy. The founders of the USA were a pretty brilliant bunch, but they didn’t expect that everyone who was going to have a vote was going to be brilliant. In fact, democracy doesn’t require brilliance to succeed; it just needs good old common sense to keep it going and healthy.
The point of voting is to let everyone who is ruled by our government have a say in how that ruling is going to happen. This was a very bold, exciting concept back in the day, and it still is. Our brilliant founders knew that extremists would be moderated by the overwhelming mass of people who didn’t need brilliance or higher education to see the right thing to do. That’s because people then, who had to rely on common sense applied in their daily lives to survive, would apply that same common sense to identifying what was the right thing to do.
Thing is, it doesn’t take common sense any more to make it in our daily lives. With the mass withdrawal from fundamental interaction with nature (growing our own food, building our own houses, being responsible for our own safety) that has resulted from mechanization, technological innovation and the internet, we have lost the need for exercising our common sense. Industrial farming and the importing of so much of our food and other commodities means that fewer and fewer people in this country are connected to the real world. Fed by the fantasy world of TV, movies and video games, spending all day long indoors, has created a gap between what is real and possible, and what is desired - and the gap is growing faster and faster.
Simply put, most people just aren’t practicing the use of common sense any more because they don’t have to. So, like any other faculty that doesn’t get used, common sense is just dying out. Unfortunately, what we’re losing is what is needed to vote in something approaching a rational manner in order to maintain a living, healthy democracy. Without common sense, it all falls apart.
Today, our health, our well being, our communities, our society and our country are all going away so rapidly that it’s hard to see how things can be brought back to equilibrium again. We’re all being fed information that has so little connection to reality that it’s stunning. There is so little common sense being used that sometimes I wonder if we’ve been taken over by alien beings from another dimension. Such irrational behavior isn’t all that surprising, since that’s pretty much what has happened - just substitute media, government and political correctness for alien beings.
Really, coming up with a solution is tough, but it seems to me that a first step would be to return power to the people via local governments, because it’s obvious that locals know best about local issues. This means that locals should be the ones who implement federal and state programs in the places that they’re meant to be implemented. It’s only common sense that locals would do a good job of it as they have throughout history - because they’d be the ones who’d suffer if they screwed up.
You can’t force people to use their common sense, and you can’t expect people to suddenly begin using any faculty when it has become atrophied. Still, things have a way of balancing out over time. I’m hoping people wake up and shake themselves up on their own before too long, though, because as bad as it’s become, those who will be paying for the folly of this and past generations will be our children, their children and beyond. That’s not a legacy I’m happy about leaving for them.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Gila Sustainable Community News
My last post was about having my rebuttal of some statements by Nancy Kaminski rejected and my thoughts about bias, propaganda and censorship. I just wanted to say that I received an email about "problems with the software" and eventually my comments did wind up on that forum.
I tell you, you have to watch everyone and everything all the time. It would be easy to get into conspiracy mode, but sometimes accidents do happen.
I tell you, you have to watch everyone and everything all the time. It would be easy to get into conspiracy mode, but sometimes accidents do happen.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Bias, propaganda and censorship
Using them says more about the user than about what is being said
Copyright © CR Edmunds
www.onestillfree.com
I received a copy of a post to the Gila Sustainable Community News, Calendar and Forum about the Mexican wolf. Because I wanted to rebut some of the statements by the author, Ms Nancy Kaminski, I properly joined the forum. After being accepted as a member, my rebuttal post was rejected.
Bias, propaganda and censorship are tools for those who cannot stand the light of truth. Those who resort to such do so because they have no truth to convey. Ms Kaminski’s forum post is chock full of inaccuracies and downright misinformation – is that all that pro-Mexican wolf people have in their arsenals?
What bias, propaganda and censorship say is that the message is suspect. What Ms Kaminski’s post and the Gila Forum are saying about themselves is the truth be damned - they want what they want and they’ll stoop to whatever it takes to get it. But heck – that’s what we have blogs for – I can say what I want to say anyway, right here.
So, here’s the reply I tried to submit:
In the interests of truth and accuracy, I would like to provide corrections and comments regarding Ms. Kaminski’s article about Mexican wolves.
“We brought these beautiful wolves to the very brink of extinction.”
I have asked many people – including those with the Mexican wolf program - to tell me how many Mexican wolves are in Mexico. No one has answered. I wonder if anyone knows? Without knowing, can anyone say truthfully that Mexican wolves were brought to the brink of extinction?
“There may have been thousands of them when we first drove cattle across the plains and into what would become New Mexico and Arizona.”
There may have been, but that is unlikely, given that the local wolves were Mogollon wolves. The Mexican wolf program will tell you, if directly asked, that the Mexican wolf recovery area is actually the extreme limit of the possible hunting (not denning) range of Mexican wolves (there is no definitive scientific evidence of Mexican wolf presence in the area). It is hard to imagine Mogollon wolves not protecting their territory. It’s more likely that there were occasional Mexican wolves here, and you bet they were being very, very careful about it.
“A trapper named McBride was sent to Mexico to find wolves there [in Mexico]. After several months he found only six, one pregnant female and five males”.
I have always thought how awful this history is for the Mexican wolf. Trapped and kidnapped from the place where they were born and lived wild, transported and kept in captivity in a non-native area, some dying, others bred and rebred in captivity (from one female!) so that their gene pool is extremely limited - how frightening for the original wolves. How miserable they must have been in captivity. What a horrible experience for those wolves and a shameful beginning for the Mexican wolf program.
“With these and others in zoos and wildlife centers across the US, which were genetically tested to be sure they were pure Mexican wolves, the captive breeding project began.”
Actually, from the information available on the Mexican wolf site and it would seem from Ms. Kaminski’s assertions just above, the original Mexican wolves captured in Mexico were the only Mexican wolves. There were none at that time in zoos and wildlife centers. Therefore, all Mexican wolves in captive breeding programs around the US are descended from the original prisoners. If I am incorrect about this, I would appreciate a link to documentation for such.
“Currently fifty-two of these roam freely in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area which is nearly 7000 square miles of public lands in Arizona and New Mexico. Every Mexican wolf alive today is in a stud book.”
Actually 52 collared wolves roam the area, and an unknown number of uncollared wolves are out there, too. The 7000 square miles of land includes private land as well, a fact that is conveniently overlooked so much of the time. Further, most of the uncollared wolves, if not all, are not in any stud book.
But heck, don’t believe me. Do the research yourself – just go to the source, don’t believe those Mexican wolf program supporters, who can’t be bothered with the truth.
Copyright © CR Edmunds
www.onestillfree.com
I received a copy of a post to the Gila Sustainable Community News, Calendar and Forum about the Mexican wolf. Because I wanted to rebut some of the statements by the author, Ms Nancy Kaminski, I properly joined the forum. After being accepted as a member, my rebuttal post was rejected.
Bias, propaganda and censorship are tools for those who cannot stand the light of truth. Those who resort to such do so because they have no truth to convey. Ms Kaminski’s forum post is chock full of inaccuracies and downright misinformation – is that all that pro-Mexican wolf people have in their arsenals?
What bias, propaganda and censorship say is that the message is suspect. What Ms Kaminski’s post and the Gila Forum are saying about themselves is the truth be damned - they want what they want and they’ll stoop to whatever it takes to get it. But heck – that’s what we have blogs for – I can say what I want to say anyway, right here.
So, here’s the reply I tried to submit:
In the interests of truth and accuracy, I would like to provide corrections and comments regarding Ms. Kaminski’s article about Mexican wolves.
“We brought these beautiful wolves to the very brink of extinction.”
I have asked many people – including those with the Mexican wolf program - to tell me how many Mexican wolves are in Mexico. No one has answered. I wonder if anyone knows? Without knowing, can anyone say truthfully that Mexican wolves were brought to the brink of extinction?
“There may have been thousands of them when we first drove cattle across the plains and into what would become New Mexico and Arizona.”
There may have been, but that is unlikely, given that the local wolves were Mogollon wolves. The Mexican wolf program will tell you, if directly asked, that the Mexican wolf recovery area is actually the extreme limit of the possible hunting (not denning) range of Mexican wolves (there is no definitive scientific evidence of Mexican wolf presence in the area). It is hard to imagine Mogollon wolves not protecting their territory. It’s more likely that there were occasional Mexican wolves here, and you bet they were being very, very careful about it.
“A trapper named McBride was sent to Mexico to find wolves there [in Mexico]. After several months he found only six, one pregnant female and five males”.
I have always thought how awful this history is for the Mexican wolf. Trapped and kidnapped from the place where they were born and lived wild, transported and kept in captivity in a non-native area, some dying, others bred and rebred in captivity (from one female!) so that their gene pool is extremely limited - how frightening for the original wolves. How miserable they must have been in captivity. What a horrible experience for those wolves and a shameful beginning for the Mexican wolf program.
“With these and others in zoos and wildlife centers across the US, which were genetically tested to be sure they were pure Mexican wolves, the captive breeding project began.”
Actually, from the information available on the Mexican wolf site and it would seem from Ms. Kaminski’s assertions just above, the original Mexican wolves captured in Mexico were the only Mexican wolves. There were none at that time in zoos and wildlife centers. Therefore, all Mexican wolves in captive breeding programs around the US are descended from the original prisoners. If I am incorrect about this, I would appreciate a link to documentation for such.
“Currently fifty-two of these roam freely in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area which is nearly 7000 square miles of public lands in Arizona and New Mexico. Every Mexican wolf alive today is in a stud book.”
Actually 52 collared wolves roam the area, and an unknown number of uncollared wolves are out there, too. The 7000 square miles of land includes private land as well, a fact that is conveniently overlooked so much of the time. Further, most of the uncollared wolves, if not all, are not in any stud book.
But heck, don’t believe me. Do the research yourself – just go to the source, don’t believe those Mexican wolf program supporters, who can’t be bothered with the truth.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Lawsuits Are Not Environmentalism
The truth about Center for Biological Diversity
Copyright © 2009 CR Edmunds
When the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) asks for donations, most people likely think they’re contributing to projects that will improve the environment. But it just ain’t so. CBD has become a money-making litigation machine. They aren’t out there with shovels and seeds, working on the environment, they’re paying lawyers, sneaking onto private property to spy on conditions and – if they don’t find the conditions sufficiently bad to claim the property owner is ruining the environment- they’re publishing phony photos of "environmental devastation". No actual environmental work going on that CBD is doing - just about everything they do these days is rather to support litigation.
Yeah, it may seem like CBD’s litigation is for the good of endangered plants and animals, but when you start looking at the results of what they do you start noticing the real cost to humans and environment alike. This is because CBD activities, particularly litigation, are not environment-driven, but rather CBD agenda-driven. They’re not shy about their plans to evict private property owners from their own land, to create Gardens of Eden in their Sky Islands. No matter that some of the species in the areas being touted as endangered aren’t endangered (or never even lived in the place – look at the weird Mexican wolf situation). No matter that so much of the litigation results in grinding the US Constitution into the dirt. When they win note that someone else always has to bear the burden of environmentalism – never CBD. No, CBD lawyers and CBD personnel are all living nice, safe, well-funded lives, while the rest of us pay and pay and pay – either by losing property, losing our rights, or by being scammed for the donations CBD says it needs to “protect the environment”. All that money, effort, suffering by property owners – and none of it for actual environmental work, just lawsuits. Paperwork, that’s all it is – but it’s not solving problems, it’s causing more.
Humans are a legitimate species on this planet, too – a fact that CBD and other radical, terrorist environmental groups ignore. None of their projects, their agendas or their litigation truly take into account the human right to live and thrive on this planet.
God created the Garden of Eden to have people in it. It was Satan who caused people to have to leave that Garden. Kinda makes you think about CBD, doesn’t it?
---
Here’s a list of articles about recent litigation by CBD. I might add to it over time – I can only look at this information for so long before it makes me sick. Not that the critters involved don’t need protecting, but CBD is doing nothing for them, only filing lawsuits. Lawsuits are not environmentalism!
Loggerhead turtles lawsuit with Oceana Inc. and Turtle Island Restoration Environmental Law360 - http://environmental.law360.com/
Two ocean species of turtles lawsuit with Oceana and the Turtle Island Restoration Network Twilight Earth - http://www.twilightearth.com/
Ocean acidification impacts lawsuit Switchboard, from NRDC - http://switchboard.nrdc.org/
Desert Lizard lawsuit http://www.yumasun.com/news/lizard-50356-habitat-yuma.html
Global warming impacts lawsuit against six (6) federal agencies. Global warming is a THEORY, people! http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/global-warming-01-15-2009.html
Coal-Fired Power Plants lawsuit www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/05/13-4
Improper jaguar killing lawsuit www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/jaguar-05-12-2009.html
Stop beach driving lawsuit www.rzrforums.net/public-lands-advocacy/11153-center-biological-diversity-lawsuit-oceano-dunes.html
Desert tortoise lawsuit with the Sierra Club, and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility www.globalclimatelaw.com/tags/center-for-biological-diversit/
Force the DOI consider listing the American pika as threatened or endangered lawsuit http://greenoptions.com/tag/center-for-biological-diversity
Snowy Plover http://bit.ly/pJWb1
California red-legged frogs and San Francisco garter snakes; notice of intent to sue. http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/5035
Nevada water project lawsuit. http://www.lvrj.com/news/39421007.html
Protect wildlife and roadless areas in CA, with 6 other environmental groups. http://tinyurl.com/nodgau
Block thinning of trees in AZ lawsuit (note that because the thinning was stopped, the result was one of the largest forest fires in the US) http://www.forphoto.com/issues_info/local/thinning_lawsuit.php
North Fork Eel River lawsuit http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pressreleases/number-20
Raptor habitat (as compensation for wind turbine kills) lawsuit https://www.earthislandprojects.org/news/new_news.cfm?newsID=649
Bighorns lawsuit http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090325/NEWS01/903250314/1144/news01
Ely NV travel management appeal http://tinyurl.com/ccwdop
Freshwater turtle harvest lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/naorbl
Not enough land designated “critical habitat” lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/n4th92
Enough! I can’t stand to look at more of these.
Copyright © 2009 CR Edmunds
When the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) asks for donations, most people likely think they’re contributing to projects that will improve the environment. But it just ain’t so. CBD has become a money-making litigation machine. They aren’t out there with shovels and seeds, working on the environment, they’re paying lawyers, sneaking onto private property to spy on conditions and – if they don’t find the conditions sufficiently bad to claim the property owner is ruining the environment- they’re publishing phony photos of "environmental devastation". No actual environmental work going on that CBD is doing - just about everything they do these days is rather to support litigation.
Yeah, it may seem like CBD’s litigation is for the good of endangered plants and animals, but when you start looking at the results of what they do you start noticing the real cost to humans and environment alike. This is because CBD activities, particularly litigation, are not environment-driven, but rather CBD agenda-driven. They’re not shy about their plans to evict private property owners from their own land, to create Gardens of Eden in their Sky Islands. No matter that some of the species in the areas being touted as endangered aren’t endangered (or never even lived in the place – look at the weird Mexican wolf situation). No matter that so much of the litigation results in grinding the US Constitution into the dirt. When they win note that someone else always has to bear the burden of environmentalism – never CBD. No, CBD lawyers and CBD personnel are all living nice, safe, well-funded lives, while the rest of us pay and pay and pay – either by losing property, losing our rights, or by being scammed for the donations CBD says it needs to “protect the environment”. All that money, effort, suffering by property owners – and none of it for actual environmental work, just lawsuits. Paperwork, that’s all it is – but it’s not solving problems, it’s causing more.
Humans are a legitimate species on this planet, too – a fact that CBD and other radical, terrorist environmental groups ignore. None of their projects, their agendas or their litigation truly take into account the human right to live and thrive on this planet.
God created the Garden of Eden to have people in it. It was Satan who caused people to have to leave that Garden. Kinda makes you think about CBD, doesn’t it?
---
Here’s a list of articles about recent litigation by CBD. I might add to it over time – I can only look at this information for so long before it makes me sick. Not that the critters involved don’t need protecting, but CBD is doing nothing for them, only filing lawsuits. Lawsuits are not environmentalism!
Loggerhead turtles lawsuit with Oceana Inc. and Turtle Island Restoration Environmental Law360 - http://environmental.law360.com/
Two ocean species of turtles lawsuit with Oceana and the Turtle Island Restoration Network Twilight Earth - http://www.twilightearth.com/
Ocean acidification impacts lawsuit Switchboard, from NRDC - http://switchboard.nrdc.org/
Desert Lizard lawsuit http://www.yumasun.com/news/lizard-50356-habitat-yuma.html
Global warming impacts lawsuit against six (6) federal agencies. Global warming is a THEORY, people! http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/global-warming-01-15-2009.html
Coal-Fired Power Plants lawsuit www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/05/13-4
Improper jaguar killing lawsuit www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/jaguar-05-12-2009.html
Stop beach driving lawsuit www.rzrforums.net/public-lands-advocacy/11153-center-biological-diversity-lawsuit-oceano-dunes.html
Desert tortoise lawsuit with the Sierra Club, and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility www.globalclimatelaw.com/tags/center-for-biological-diversit/
Force the DOI consider listing the American pika as threatened or endangered lawsuit http://greenoptions.com/tag/center-for-biological-diversity
Snowy Plover http://bit.ly/pJWb1
California red-legged frogs and San Francisco garter snakes; notice of intent to sue. http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/5035
Nevada water project lawsuit. http://www.lvrj.com/news/39421007.html
Protect wildlife and roadless areas in CA, with 6 other environmental groups. http://tinyurl.com/nodgau
Block thinning of trees in AZ lawsuit (note that because the thinning was stopped, the result was one of the largest forest fires in the US) http://www.forphoto.com/issues_info/local/thinning_lawsuit.php
North Fork Eel River lawsuit http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pressreleases/number-20
Raptor habitat (as compensation for wind turbine kills) lawsuit https://www.earthislandprojects.org/news/new_news.cfm?newsID=649
Bighorns lawsuit http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090325/NEWS01/903250314/1144/news01
Ely NV travel management appeal http://tinyurl.com/ccwdop
Freshwater turtle harvest lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/naorbl
Not enough land designated “critical habitat” lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/n4th92
Enough! I can’t stand to look at more of these.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Defenders of Wildlife... or irresponsible animal dumpers?
News release from Defenders of Wildlife today says: "Raised in South Salem, New York’s Wolf Conservation Center, she [a female Mexican wolf] was released with excitement into her native habitat in Arizona late last year."
Doesn't it occur to anyone at DoW how unfair it is to wolves to raise them among humans, in captivity where they never learn to hunt, in a very different (humid) climate and then release them to act "wild"?
If anyone did that to a dog, it would be a crime that could be prosecuted. What is different between the Mexican Wolf Program and any other irresponsible animal dumper?
Doesn't it occur to anyone at DoW how unfair it is to wolves to raise them among humans, in captivity where they never learn to hunt, in a very different (humid) climate and then release them to act "wild"?
If anyone did that to a dog, it would be a crime that could be prosecuted. What is different between the Mexican Wolf Program and any other irresponsible animal dumper?
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Vulcan Logic and The Good Of The Many
Copyright © 2009 CREdmunds
Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears and his dispassionate logic, said that "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one" at the end of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. A noble thought indeed, but putting it into practice necessitates having a clear idea of what the “good of the many” actually is.
In the USA, the good of the many is based on the rights of the individual. That is, the “many” is a collection of individuals, the rights of each collectively protected by the Constitution.
Currently in this noble country of ours, we have a situation that threatens our Constitution and our American way of life, and it is based on a warping of the notion of the “the many” to mean a homogenous group of like-thinking people. This new point of view is promoted by special interest groups - in my opinion the most dangerous threat we have to this country today.
What are special interest groups? They would be the well-funded, powerful groups that want each of us to think and act like they want us to - like zombies instead of independently thinking individuals - so that their decision makers (you know, CEOs and such) can afford to live in the lifestyles they have become accustomed to. (Check out my article Global Warming Zombies from November, 2008.) These groups don’t care what damage they do to the rest of the country - or the world - to achieve their ends.
How can you identify a special interest group? Let me count the ways.
First, special interest groups are just that - their interests are unique, and narrow-based interests rather than the interests of the many. Their point of view does not represent the truth for all (and in my opinion may not represent the truth in any shape or form).
Second, special interest groups use fear tactics to achieve their goals. While they say they are working for the betterment of all - which should be enough motivation for people if that was really true - they use the whip of predictions of disastrous results if they aren't supported or don't succeed in their work.
Third, special interest groups put a lot of money into spreading their own version of the truth and dire predictions of disaster. Since most people will not act unless they are personally involved, generally the public just believes the propaganda they read and hear, and pretty soon it's "universal truth". Then the special interest groups get to do whatever they want.
Fourth, special interest groups will file lawsuits at the drop of a hat - even if they don't plan on following through. Since most people avoid lawyers and courts, people figure that if a group is willing to sue, they must be right.
Fifth, special interest groups also seek to implement legislation, usually legislation that involves other people losing their personal and property rights.
Sixth, special interest groups generally don't do any actual on-the-ground work themselves in the field they are supposedly improving.
Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, special interest groups put out that they are working for the betterment of all, but almost always their "truth" requires that other people give up something or change in a fundamental way. In the movie, Mr. Spock was telling Kirk why it was right that he, Spock, should sacrifice himself “for the good of the many”. Special interest groups don’t give up anything for their cause. The sacrifices always come from others.
Isn’t it time that we all used Vulcan logic to look more closely at what special interest groups are doing to - not for - the people of this country, and to our Constitution? Isn’t it time that we all started defending our rights as individuals, a fight that would truly protect the good of the many? I’m pretty sure if we don’t, to paraphrase Spock in Amok Time, that we, the people, may discover that the freedom we are having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as the freedom we are wanting.
Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears and his dispassionate logic, said that "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one" at the end of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. A noble thought indeed, but putting it into practice necessitates having a clear idea of what the “good of the many” actually is.
In the USA, the good of the many is based on the rights of the individual. That is, the “many” is a collection of individuals, the rights of each collectively protected by the Constitution.
Currently in this noble country of ours, we have a situation that threatens our Constitution and our American way of life, and it is based on a warping of the notion of the “the many” to mean a homogenous group of like-thinking people. This new point of view is promoted by special interest groups - in my opinion the most dangerous threat we have to this country today.
What are special interest groups? They would be the well-funded, powerful groups that want each of us to think and act like they want us to - like zombies instead of independently thinking individuals - so that their decision makers (you know, CEOs and such) can afford to live in the lifestyles they have become accustomed to. (Check out my article Global Warming Zombies from November, 2008.) These groups don’t care what damage they do to the rest of the country - or the world - to achieve their ends.
How can you identify a special interest group? Let me count the ways.
First, special interest groups are just that - their interests are unique, and narrow-based interests rather than the interests of the many. Their point of view does not represent the truth for all (and in my opinion may not represent the truth in any shape or form).
Second, special interest groups use fear tactics to achieve their goals. While they say they are working for the betterment of all - which should be enough motivation for people if that was really true - they use the whip of predictions of disastrous results if they aren't supported or don't succeed in their work.
Third, special interest groups put a lot of money into spreading their own version of the truth and dire predictions of disaster. Since most people will not act unless they are personally involved, generally the public just believes the propaganda they read and hear, and pretty soon it's "universal truth". Then the special interest groups get to do whatever they want.
Fourth, special interest groups will file lawsuits at the drop of a hat - even if they don't plan on following through. Since most people avoid lawyers and courts, people figure that if a group is willing to sue, they must be right.
Fifth, special interest groups also seek to implement legislation, usually legislation that involves other people losing their personal and property rights.
Sixth, special interest groups generally don't do any actual on-the-ground work themselves in the field they are supposedly improving.
Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, special interest groups put out that they are working for the betterment of all, but almost always their "truth" requires that other people give up something or change in a fundamental way. In the movie, Mr. Spock was telling Kirk why it was right that he, Spock, should sacrifice himself “for the good of the many”. Special interest groups don’t give up anything for their cause. The sacrifices always come from others.
Isn’t it time that we all used Vulcan logic to look more closely at what special interest groups are doing to - not for - the people of this country, and to our Constitution? Isn’t it time that we all started defending our rights as individuals, a fight that would truly protect the good of the many? I’m pretty sure if we don’t, to paraphrase Spock in Amok Time, that we, the people, may discover that the freedom we are having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as the freedom we are wanting.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Swine Flu or Swindle the Public?
In the news today: President Obama Tuesday sent a letter to Congress asking for $1.5 billion to fight the swine flu outbreak, a request he said he was making “out of an abundance of caution,” as U.S. officials confirmed 64 cases of swine flu, including five individuals who had to be hospitalized.
Excuse me - didn’t we get into the economic crisis we’re in today because of spending too much money we didn’t have on too much stuff we didn’t need? Aren’t we all – the taxpayer who is going to have to cough up this money that Obama is spending – being told to stay out of debt right now? Shouldn't our government be following its own advice?
Abundance of caution??? With all due respect to a President of the USA, it appears that he is doing his best to drive this country down the tubes, throwing economic caution to the winds.
Excuse me - didn’t we get into the economic crisis we’re in today because of spending too much money we didn’t have on too much stuff we didn’t need? Aren’t we all – the taxpayer who is going to have to cough up this money that Obama is spending – being told to stay out of debt right now? Shouldn't our government be following its own advice?
Abundance of caution??? With all due respect to a President of the USA, it appears that he is doing his best to drive this country down the tubes, throwing economic caution to the winds.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wolf News Release: WildEarth Guardians lawsuit setback
Contact: Ron Shortes, Catron County Attorney
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Phone 575.533.6265
Email: shortes2@gilanet.com
April 17, 2009
WILDEARTH GUARDIANS SUMMARY JUDGMENT AGAINST CATRON COUNTY DENIED
Environmentalist attempt to deny County the right to protect its own citizens stalled
RESERVE, N.M. Catron County, New Mexico has learned that a WildEarth Guardians’ lawsuit, which attempts to deny the County the right to protect its own citizens from imminent harm, has been stalled. A US District Court Judge in Santa Fe recently denied a bid by the environmental group for a summary judgment against the County.
WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe, NM based environmental group formed through the merger of Forest Guardians, Sinapu, and the Sagebrush Sea Campaign, filed a suit against Catron County last year. The group claimed that a 2007 County ordinance, providing for protection measures for Catron County Citizens in the event of problems with wolves, violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
In October of 2008, Judge Martha Vazquez issued a ruling stating that WildEarth Guardians’ claims were moot, as the County had amended the ordinance. Nevertheless, WildEarth Guardians continued to press the lawsuit, claiming that the Catron County Commission allegedly violated the ESA by setting traps for a pair of wolves. However, the Court has now denied a request for summary judgment against the County on this issue.
“It is the responsibility of government to protect its citizens,” said a Catron County spokesman. “We have a problem here with wolves and have had one since the beginning of the program. The incidents have escalated to the point where our people - particularly our children - are at risk.”
Catron County has submitted numerous requests to the Mexican wolf program to include realistic consideration for human safety - something that is currently lacking in the ESA’s 10j Rule regarding reintroduction of Mexican wolves.
“The Mexican wolf program people are well aware of our concerns for the safety of our children,” the County spokesman said. “All WildEarth Guardians is concerned about is wolves - they apparently don’t care if a child is at risk.”
“Our citizens rely on local government to protect them,” the spokesman said. “They demand that of us, and by law we are authorized to protect our citizens. We cannot, legally or morally, allow the threat from habituated wolves to reach the point where our children and families are in imminent danger. That is clear.”
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Phone 575.533.6265
Email: shortes2@gilanet.com
April 17, 2009
WILDEARTH GUARDIANS SUMMARY JUDGMENT AGAINST CATRON COUNTY DENIED
Environmentalist attempt to deny County the right to protect its own citizens stalled
RESERVE, N.M. Catron County, New Mexico has learned that a WildEarth Guardians’ lawsuit, which attempts to deny the County the right to protect its own citizens from imminent harm, has been stalled. A US District Court Judge in Santa Fe recently denied a bid by the environmental group for a summary judgment against the County.
WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe, NM based environmental group formed through the merger of Forest Guardians, Sinapu, and the Sagebrush Sea Campaign, filed a suit against Catron County last year. The group claimed that a 2007 County ordinance, providing for protection measures for Catron County Citizens in the event of problems with wolves, violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
In October of 2008, Judge Martha Vazquez issued a ruling stating that WildEarth Guardians’ claims were moot, as the County had amended the ordinance. Nevertheless, WildEarth Guardians continued to press the lawsuit, claiming that the Catron County Commission allegedly violated the ESA by setting traps for a pair of wolves. However, the Court has now denied a request for summary judgment against the County on this issue.
“It is the responsibility of government to protect its citizens,” said a Catron County spokesman. “We have a problem here with wolves and have had one since the beginning of the program. The incidents have escalated to the point where our people - particularly our children - are at risk.”
Catron County has submitted numerous requests to the Mexican wolf program to include realistic consideration for human safety - something that is currently lacking in the ESA’s 10j Rule regarding reintroduction of Mexican wolves.
“The Mexican wolf program people are well aware of our concerns for the safety of our children,” the County spokesman said. “All WildEarth Guardians is concerned about is wolves - they apparently don’t care if a child is at risk.”
“Our citizens rely on local government to protect them,” the spokesman said. “They demand that of us, and by law we are authorized to protect our citizens. We cannot, legally or morally, allow the threat from habituated wolves to reach the point where our children and families are in imminent danger. That is clear.”
# # #
Monday, April 13, 2009
How is the Mexican wolf program like waterboarding?
Food for thought
Copyright © 2009 C.R.Edmunds
It is a crime for a human to stalk another human, not because of actual physical harm that has occurred but because it causes psychological damage (trauma) and could lead to physical harm.
Psychological abuse can be justifiable cause for divorce or removal of a child from a home even though no physical abuse has occurred.
Waterboarding, deprevation and humiliation are used as forms of torture even though no physical damage occurs.
According to a report in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, non-physical torture appears to cause as much mental distress and traumatic stress as physical torture. (See Science Daily article).
Yet environmental groups and the Mexican wolf program do not consider psychological damage (what looks very much like PTSD) that is documented in the families of Catron County residents to be cause for removal of Mexican wolves that stalk children and families in the program area.
What is wrong with this picture?
Copyright © 2009 C.R.Edmunds
It is a crime for a human to stalk another human, not because of actual physical harm that has occurred but because it causes psychological damage (trauma) and could lead to physical harm.
Psychological abuse can be justifiable cause for divorce or removal of a child from a home even though no physical abuse has occurred.
Waterboarding, deprevation and humiliation are used as forms of torture even though no physical damage occurs.
According to a report in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, non-physical torture appears to cause as much mental distress and traumatic stress as physical torture. (See Science Daily article).
Yet environmental groups and the Mexican wolf program do not consider psychological damage (what looks very much like PTSD) that is documented in the families of Catron County residents to be cause for removal of Mexican wolves that stalk children and families in the program area.
What is wrong with this picture?
How is the Mexican wolf program like waterboarding?
Food for thought
Copyright © 2009 C.R.Edmunds
It is a crime for a human to stalk another human, not because of actual physical harm that has occurred but because it causes psychological damage (trauma) and could lead to physical harm.
Psychological abuse can be justifiable cause for divorce or removal of a child from a home even though no physical abuse has occurred.
Waterboarding, deprevation and humiliation are used as forms of torture even though no physical damage occurs.
According to a report in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, non-physical torture appears to cause as much mental distress and traumatic stress as physical torture. (See Science Daily article).
Yet environmental groups and the Mexican wolf program do not consider psychological damage (what looks very much like PTSD) that is documented in the families of Catron County residents to be cause for removal of Mexican wolves that stalk children and families in the program area.
What is wrong with this picture?
Copyright © 2009 C.R.Edmunds
It is a crime for a human to stalk another human, not because of actual physical harm that has occurred but because it causes psychological damage (trauma) and could lead to physical harm.
Psychological abuse can be justifiable cause for divorce or removal of a child from a home even though no physical abuse has occurred.
Waterboarding, deprevation and humiliation are used as forms of torture even though no physical damage occurs.
According to a report in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, non-physical torture appears to cause as much mental distress and traumatic stress as physical torture. (See Science Daily article).
Yet environmental groups and the Mexican wolf program do not consider psychological damage (what looks very much like PTSD) that is documented in the families of Catron County residents to be cause for removal of Mexican wolves that stalk children and families in the program area.
What is wrong with this picture?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
US no longer competitive, article says
NY Times online article today says "The U.S. ranks sixth among 40 countries and regions for innovation, a non-partisan group noted in a report."
Duh!
Every new alternative energy innovation since 1972 has been squashed. Of course the US is no longer competitive. And only now the media is noticing??? What's wrong with this picture?
In Innovation, U.S. Said to Be Losing Competitive Edge
By STEVE LOHR
Duh!
Every new alternative energy innovation since 1972 has been squashed. Of course the US is no longer competitive. And only now the media is noticing??? What's wrong with this picture?
In Innovation, U.S. Said to Be Losing Competitive Edge
By STEVE LOHR
Thursday, January 22, 2009
More on Global Warming
"pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult. . . . All the evidence I see is that the current warming of the climate is just like past warmings. In fact, it's not as much as past warmings yet, and it probably has little to do with carbon dioxide, just like past warmings had little to do with carbon dioxide. . . . Science is one of the great triumphs of humankind, and I hate to see it dragged through the mud in an episode like this"
- William Happer, former chief scientist at the Energy Department and the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton, quoted in the Daily Princetonian on the rush to pin climate change on human industrial activity.
- William Happer, former chief scientist at the Energy Department and the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton, quoted in the Daily Princetonian on the rush to pin climate change on human industrial activity.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
No end to spin
Copyright © 2009 C R Edmunds
www.onestillfree.blogspot.com
Oh, it hurts to have to admit that for once I agree with the words of Enviros. Fortunately that pain is somewhat mitigated by the fact that even when they try to get it right, the Enviros get it wrong - no doubt on purpose methinks - and so while I agree with the words, I don’t agree with the premises.
“Conservation groups” (they used to be “environmental groups” but that name is getting a deservedly bad flavor) have written to the US Fish & Wildlife Service to stop the agency’s using the image of a Mexican wolf that died in captivity. The female wolf was one of the original 11 released into the wild as part of the Mexican wolf recovery program back in 1998 (she was a captive-bred wolf, not a wild wolf).
“Conservation Groups” (the usual suspects, headed this time by the Center for Biological Diversity, a group known for twisting the facts, see Chilton v Center for Biological Diversity, Inc.) claim it’s important for people to know the “truth” (and isn’t that a joke, coming from them) about the poster wolf: they are upset that it died of stress and overheating after being captured by US FWS in 2005.
These “Conservation Groups” are using the death of an aged wolf more than three years ago to complain about the management of the “wolf predator control program” - a term they have dreamed up that apparently refers to the capture or killing of wolves after three confirmed livestock kills in a year. The Enviros would have us believe the problem is with the pesky ranchers, who keep whining about all the cows that wolves eat (not to mention the horses, dogs, cats, etc.) instead of the elk and deer that the wolves are supposed to be dining on. The Enviros want to stop this silly policy of removing (and relocating) problem wolves.
You know what? (I’m getting shivers just writing these words). I agree. A major flaw with the Mexican wolf program is this business of capturing wolves.
But then, here’s where I disagree (my relief is huge). What Enviros really want is for ranchers and everyone else to just suck it up and let wolves eat what they will, so that the bad, cow-eating wolves will not have to be captured or killed for all that repeated destruction. The implication is that it’s because of this wanton protection of ranchers and resulting removal of wolves that the wolf program isn’t successful.
Not so!
The program isn’t successful because the wolves aren’t wild to begin with. Pay attention here, children - this is a very important point! Real wild wolves wouldn’t be eating dogs, cats, horses and cows because real wild wolves are afraid of humans and don’t come near humans unless they’re desperate. The Mexican wolf program's “tame” wolves (habituated wolves) are so fearless of humans that they’ll hang out near houses, getting their meals from pets and domestic livestock because it’s much easier than chasing all over the forest after elk and deer.
Female Mexican wolf 511, the poster wolf, was born in captivity, where she was routinely handled for veterinary exams and vaccinations. After release “into the wild” (actually near or in the middle of ranching areas), like other wolves in the program 511 was recaptured to replace batteries in her collar, to be revaccinated and be brought to captive facilities for breeding purposes; she additionally was captured and “translocated” (moved to another area where supposedly she’d forget all about being habituated and having a taste for cows) because she was a problem wolf. Wolf 511 was eight years old when she died. Eight is quite old for a wild wolf, and therefore like any old animal, she would have been vulnerable to the effects of stress. I’m guessing she would not have lived that long if she had really been a wild wolf, without all that extra health care from the Mexican wolf program.
And now we have come to my rambling point of disagreement with the Enviros. “Conservation Groups” want the poster wolf to show some other wolf than poster wolf 511, because she died in captivity. The Enviros want the poster wolf to show the “”truth”. Well, wouldn’t it be more the truth to show a wolf with a collar on (to show that it’s been captured, vaccinated, examined and fed by humans), and to also show the wolf’s veterinary charts, pedigrees, the human names given to them like any domestic animal (511’s name was Brunhilda, her parents were Parkeyes and Rio). Wouldn’t it be more the truth to show the wolf snacking on puppies and calves - or lurking near school playgrounds as habituated wolves tend to do? Isn’t it a travesty of the truth to imply that 511 or any Mexican wolf poster wolves are really wild at all?
Fact is, no wild wolf has ever been released by the Mexican wolf program. Every wolf released has been the result of a captive breeding program, and most released wolves have been captured and released over and over again. Where is a wild wolf supposed to come from that can pose for a photo?
Ah, but what’s truth got to do with anything when you’re busy spinning away…
www.onestillfree.blogspot.com
Oh, it hurts to have to admit that for once I agree with the words of Enviros. Fortunately that pain is somewhat mitigated by the fact that even when they try to get it right, the Enviros get it wrong - no doubt on purpose methinks - and so while I agree with the words, I don’t agree with the premises.
“Conservation groups” (they used to be “environmental groups” but that name is getting a deservedly bad flavor) have written to the US Fish & Wildlife Service to stop the agency’s using the image of a Mexican wolf that died in captivity. The female wolf was one of the original 11 released into the wild as part of the Mexican wolf recovery program back in 1998 (she was a captive-bred wolf, not a wild wolf).
“Conservation Groups” (the usual suspects, headed this time by the Center for Biological Diversity, a group known for twisting the facts, see Chilton v Center for Biological Diversity, Inc.) claim it’s important for people to know the “truth” (and isn’t that a joke, coming from them) about the poster wolf: they are upset that it died of stress and overheating after being captured by US FWS in 2005.
These “Conservation Groups” are using the death of an aged wolf more than three years ago to complain about the management of the “wolf predator control program” - a term they have dreamed up that apparently refers to the capture or killing of wolves after three confirmed livestock kills in a year. The Enviros would have us believe the problem is with the pesky ranchers, who keep whining about all the cows that wolves eat (not to mention the horses, dogs, cats, etc.) instead of the elk and deer that the wolves are supposed to be dining on. The Enviros want to stop this silly policy of removing (and relocating) problem wolves.
You know what? (I’m getting shivers just writing these words). I agree. A major flaw with the Mexican wolf program is this business of capturing wolves.
But then, here’s where I disagree (my relief is huge). What Enviros really want is for ranchers and everyone else to just suck it up and let wolves eat what they will, so that the bad, cow-eating wolves will not have to be captured or killed for all that repeated destruction. The implication is that it’s because of this wanton protection of ranchers and resulting removal of wolves that the wolf program isn’t successful.
Not so!
The program isn’t successful because the wolves aren’t wild to begin with. Pay attention here, children - this is a very important point! Real wild wolves wouldn’t be eating dogs, cats, horses and cows because real wild wolves are afraid of humans and don’t come near humans unless they’re desperate. The Mexican wolf program's “tame” wolves (habituated wolves) are so fearless of humans that they’ll hang out near houses, getting their meals from pets and domestic livestock because it’s much easier than chasing all over the forest after elk and deer.
Female Mexican wolf 511, the poster wolf, was born in captivity, where she was routinely handled for veterinary exams and vaccinations. After release “into the wild” (actually near or in the middle of ranching areas), like other wolves in the program 511 was recaptured to replace batteries in her collar, to be revaccinated and be brought to captive facilities for breeding purposes; she additionally was captured and “translocated” (moved to another area where supposedly she’d forget all about being habituated and having a taste for cows) because she was a problem wolf. Wolf 511 was eight years old when she died. Eight is quite old for a wild wolf, and therefore like any old animal, she would have been vulnerable to the effects of stress. I’m guessing she would not have lived that long if she had really been a wild wolf, without all that extra health care from the Mexican wolf program.
And now we have come to my rambling point of disagreement with the Enviros. “Conservation Groups” want the poster wolf to show some other wolf than poster wolf 511, because she died in captivity. The Enviros want the poster wolf to show the “”truth”. Well, wouldn’t it be more the truth to show a wolf with a collar on (to show that it’s been captured, vaccinated, examined and fed by humans), and to also show the wolf’s veterinary charts, pedigrees, the human names given to them like any domestic animal (511’s name was Brunhilda, her parents were Parkeyes and Rio). Wouldn’t it be more the truth to show the wolf snacking on puppies and calves - or lurking near school playgrounds as habituated wolves tend to do? Isn’t it a travesty of the truth to imply that 511 or any Mexican wolf poster wolves are really wild at all?
Fact is, no wild wolf has ever been released by the Mexican wolf program. Every wolf released has been the result of a captive breeding program, and most released wolves have been captured and released over and over again. Where is a wild wolf supposed to come from that can pose for a photo?
Ah, but what’s truth got to do with anything when you’re busy spinning away…
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Global Warming Zombies
Sometime when we all weren’t paying attention, a lot of the folks in this country became zombies. It’s frightening, but true. We are surrounded by people whose minds have been stolen, their powers of observation and judgment replaced. But it isn’t voodoo, folks - what we have here is 1984, just a few years late.
Uh oh - I may have to explain about that 1984 reference for those who are maybe younger than me or who maybe haven’t quite the same reading experience as I’ve had. 1984 is the title of a book written by George Orwell that takes place the year 1984, and is about a civil servant whose work consists of falsifying records and political literature. His job is one small part of the government mechanism for maintaining control of the population. 1984 is where the term “Big Brother” came from.
1984’s mind control comes about through propaganda (spin doctoring in today’s terminology - the twisting of language so that words do not describe truth but sound like the truth), regulation of society through legislation of behavior to undermine the rights of the individual. Invasive surveillance is used to insure compliance.
With just a few substitutions, that could be a description of what’s going on in the United States today.
But back to zombies. A zombie is a creature displaying all the apparent signs of consciousness, but without actual consciousness of its own. Traditionally, zombies are corpses brought back to life, but the term is also used to describe a person whose thought processes are controlled by someone else - traditionally, that would be your evil voodoo guy, or, like in 1984, Big Brother.
How do I know that so many friends and neighbors, from the grocery store clerk to our legislators and everyone in between have become zombies? It’s simple. How many of you believe in global warming - raise your hands. OK, everyone - look around. See all those raised hands? Those will be your zombies. Those will be the people that spew out the Big Brother environmental drivel in spite of what they see and feel for themselves, like how darned cold it was last month. These are people who ignore data like last month’s reports across the world of unseasonable snow and plummeting temperatures and record snowfalls. Here in the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month of October, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
Global warming? Have these people stepped outside lately? Would they consider keeping their own records and paying more attention to them than to talking heads on TV? The highest temperature recorded in Phoenix - 122° - was recorded 18 years ago, not last year. In fact, the hottest recorded temperature on earth was way back in 1922 (136° in Mali). In January 2008, the Boston Globe reported that the winter 2007 was one the coldest ever recorded in South America, with snow in Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years and hundreds of people dying of cold in Peru. Snow in South Africa! Record breaking cold in Australia! And the Globe even said “For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming”.
Enquiring minds want to know: How do you cure a zombie? How do you get people to think with their own minds, not parrot sound bytes? If Big Brother takes over the country and the planet, what will the people do who invested in shorts and tank tops when they really need mukluks and parkas? And if the zombies all freeze to death, what will Big Brother’s next step be to control the rest of us?
Uh oh - I may have to explain about that 1984 reference for those who are maybe younger than me or who maybe haven’t quite the same reading experience as I’ve had. 1984 is the title of a book written by George Orwell that takes place the year 1984, and is about a civil servant whose work consists of falsifying records and political literature. His job is one small part of the government mechanism for maintaining control of the population. 1984 is where the term “Big Brother” came from.
1984’s mind control comes about through propaganda (spin doctoring in today’s terminology - the twisting of language so that words do not describe truth but sound like the truth), regulation of society through legislation of behavior to undermine the rights of the individual. Invasive surveillance is used to insure compliance.
With just a few substitutions, that could be a description of what’s going on in the United States today.
But back to zombies. A zombie is a creature displaying all the apparent signs of consciousness, but without actual consciousness of its own. Traditionally, zombies are corpses brought back to life, but the term is also used to describe a person whose thought processes are controlled by someone else - traditionally, that would be your evil voodoo guy, or, like in 1984, Big Brother.
How do I know that so many friends and neighbors, from the grocery store clerk to our legislators and everyone in between have become zombies? It’s simple. How many of you believe in global warming - raise your hands. OK, everyone - look around. See all those raised hands? Those will be your zombies. Those will be the people that spew out the Big Brother environmental drivel in spite of what they see and feel for themselves, like how darned cold it was last month. These are people who ignore data like last month’s reports across the world of unseasonable snow and plummeting temperatures and record snowfalls. Here in the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month of October, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
Global warming? Have these people stepped outside lately? Would they consider keeping their own records and paying more attention to them than to talking heads on TV? The highest temperature recorded in Phoenix - 122° - was recorded 18 years ago, not last year. In fact, the hottest recorded temperature on earth was way back in 1922 (136° in Mali). In January 2008, the Boston Globe reported that the winter 2007 was one the coldest ever recorded in South America, with snow in Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years and hundreds of people dying of cold in Peru. Snow in South Africa! Record breaking cold in Australia! And the Globe even said “For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming”.
Enquiring minds want to know: How do you cure a zombie? How do you get people to think with their own minds, not parrot sound bytes? If Big Brother takes over the country and the planet, what will the people do who invested in shorts and tank tops when they really need mukluks and parkas? And if the zombies all freeze to death, what will Big Brother’s next step be to control the rest of us?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Whining - the New National Pastime
I have a confession to make. I’m not a Greenie. Nowadays that makes me the bad guy, because Green has become the new banner and badge of being part of the politically correct crowd.
I’ve been giving some thought lately to the fact that we have a society run by youngsters (this is because as I age, I find so many in office to be younger than I am), yet we have a population the median age of which is growing older and older.
Used to be that people respected age - being an “elder” meant having wisdom that younger people valued. Over the years that has changed; our older folks have not been considered founts of wisdom or valued parts of family and society for a long time. Rather, older folks are stuffed into retirement homes and assisted living facilities soon as they have no money left to support the younger generations that can’t (or won’t) get jobs to support themselves.
Aha, you say - the reason no one pays attention to elder wisdom is because older folks’ minds wander off the topic - but not so! Bear with me a bit longer.
The reason older folks are founts of wisdom, even though some of us are dumber than doorposts, is that we have experienced more. This is so simple concept as to be profound. No matter how smart you are, how educated you are, how technologically facile you are, if you’re young, you cannot have experienced as much as someone who has lived longer. It’s a matter of sheer numbers, quantity of time. You can never really know what can be known at 50, 60 or 70 or older until you’ve lived 50, 60 or 70 or more years. You can never apply the experience of time until you’ve experienced the time. And you cannot possibly begin to comprehend what we old folks know as we view life from the perspective of just having lived longer.
“Bail me out, save me!” is what I’m seeing everywhere nowadays. I see lots of this whining going on, and see few solutions offered that encompass the big picture. I see this as a result of inexperience (i.e., young folks’ reaction) because we’re all here on the same planet and ultimately there is no one to bail us out or save us other than ourselves. That’s something it just takes time to learn.
Let me pick on the Greens as an example. Go to any petition website these days and it’ll be Green. What is a petition? It’s a bunch of names of people who’d rather whine about a problem than roll up their sleeves and do something directly. That’s whining, in my opinion, I don’t care how noble the label.
Or look at proposed (and, more scary, passed) legislation that “fixes” things by imposing more rules and regulations in our lives, legislation which takes away personal responsibility and substitutes government responsibility. Being bailed out ends up with giving up our rights and making us dependant - like children.
Whining happens because the people who are doing it don’t have any real answers. They feel the pressure, the pain of the situation, but they don’t know how to effectively make it go away. Like children, they don’t know how to fix things properly because they just don’t have the tools, the experience and perspective to see the whole picture. In other words, they don’t go to their founts of wisdom for answers: to the old folks, their elders.
We older folks pretty much don’t qualify as real Greenies because we’re not young enough to have tunnel vision any more, we can’t see things as black and white so easily. Life has taught us painful lesson by painful lesson how unrealistic that is. We older folks - at least those of us who have moved beyond the flower power years - have been around long enough to know first hand that everything is connected to everything, and that disenfranchising anyone or disallowing anything isn’t going to solve any problems. Tunnel vision isn’t wrong, it’s just so very limited as to throw everything out of kilter when acted on.
The innocent ignorance of tunnel vision is not going to go away, so it’s up to us old folks to fix things - if only we ourselves would pay attention to our own elders. Answers for today’s problems won’t be Green, won’t even necessarily be in what we know ourselves here at this time today. The big answers for the questions facing humanity and for the planet are going to be found in the wisdom of the ages, of our own elders. I don’t think they will be Green.
I’ve been giving some thought lately to the fact that we have a society run by youngsters (this is because as I age, I find so many in office to be younger than I am), yet we have a population the median age of which is growing older and older.
Used to be that people respected age - being an “elder” meant having wisdom that younger people valued. Over the years that has changed; our older folks have not been considered founts of wisdom or valued parts of family and society for a long time. Rather, older folks are stuffed into retirement homes and assisted living facilities soon as they have no money left to support the younger generations that can’t (or won’t) get jobs to support themselves.
Aha, you say - the reason no one pays attention to elder wisdom is because older folks’ minds wander off the topic - but not so! Bear with me a bit longer.
The reason older folks are founts of wisdom, even though some of us are dumber than doorposts, is that we have experienced more. This is so simple concept as to be profound. No matter how smart you are, how educated you are, how technologically facile you are, if you’re young, you cannot have experienced as much as someone who has lived longer. It’s a matter of sheer numbers, quantity of time. You can never really know what can be known at 50, 60 or 70 or older until you’ve lived 50, 60 or 70 or more years. You can never apply the experience of time until you’ve experienced the time. And you cannot possibly begin to comprehend what we old folks know as we view life from the perspective of just having lived longer.
“Bail me out, save me!” is what I’m seeing everywhere nowadays. I see lots of this whining going on, and see few solutions offered that encompass the big picture. I see this as a result of inexperience (i.e., young folks’ reaction) because we’re all here on the same planet and ultimately there is no one to bail us out or save us other than ourselves. That’s something it just takes time to learn.
Let me pick on the Greens as an example. Go to any petition website these days and it’ll be Green. What is a petition? It’s a bunch of names of people who’d rather whine about a problem than roll up their sleeves and do something directly. That’s whining, in my opinion, I don’t care how noble the label.
Or look at proposed (and, more scary, passed) legislation that “fixes” things by imposing more rules and regulations in our lives, legislation which takes away personal responsibility and substitutes government responsibility. Being bailed out ends up with giving up our rights and making us dependant - like children.
Whining happens because the people who are doing it don’t have any real answers. They feel the pressure, the pain of the situation, but they don’t know how to effectively make it go away. Like children, they don’t know how to fix things properly because they just don’t have the tools, the experience and perspective to see the whole picture. In other words, they don’t go to their founts of wisdom for answers: to the old folks, their elders.
We older folks pretty much don’t qualify as real Greenies because we’re not young enough to have tunnel vision any more, we can’t see things as black and white so easily. Life has taught us painful lesson by painful lesson how unrealistic that is. We older folks - at least those of us who have moved beyond the flower power years - have been around long enough to know first hand that everything is connected to everything, and that disenfranchising anyone or disallowing anything isn’t going to solve any problems. Tunnel vision isn’t wrong, it’s just so very limited as to throw everything out of kilter when acted on.
The innocent ignorance of tunnel vision is not going to go away, so it’s up to us old folks to fix things - if only we ourselves would pay attention to our own elders. Answers for today’s problems won’t be Green, won’t even necessarily be in what we know ourselves here at this time today. The big answers for the questions facing humanity and for the planet are going to be found in the wisdom of the ages, of our own elders. I don’t think they will be Green.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
What's the real crisis?
Today's NY Times Headlines:
As Oil Giants Lose Influence, Supply Drops
By JAD MOUAWAD
It is harder than ever for the major Western oil companies to find new prospects, even though they are awash in profits and eager to expand.
Excuse me? Awash in profits? Am I the only person who is outraged by this?
Yes, we need to come up with energy sources, and I for one want to see it come from renewable resources. That's something that should have been started in earnest 40 years ago when we had another "fuel crisis", but NOOOOO - the US government did not support alternatives to fossil fuels (petroleum) - and from what I heard, research in to fuel alternatives was pretty much squashed.
So here we are again with another crisis - actually, we have two: one energy and one economic.
The economic crisis is looking pretty artificial to me. There may be some sort of slowing of oil production, but the economic problems we are experience are actually caused by opportunistic taking of profits from raised prices based on... fear.
The US government supports this fear by supporting everyone in the oil food chain making massive profits on the the backs of us poor schmucks down here in the real world. And worse, the US government itself is making more and more tax dollars on the price gouging at the oil pump - for every jump in price at the pumps, there is an associated jump in the tax on each gallon.
No one in the chain except we peons at the bottom has any incentive whatsoever to fix anything.
This has all been nicely engineered, don't you think? First weaken the voting population by eroding individual freedom using the fear factor (been to an airport lately?). Then the sucker punch of the "fuel crisis". Throw in some toxic food scares and some global warming threats to keep us all soft. Use environmental litigation to stop any possibility of fixing any of this, even while dangling the hope of alternative (cheap) energy that will never come because there is no incentive to fix anything when everyone but the peons are making so much money. You see where this is going?
It's going to just get worse.
None of this was inevitable. All of this could have been prevented. You want some improvement? Just say NO to politics and start doing what needs to be doing yourself. Find out who's researching alternative energy and support them. Use that technology. Become a locavore (eat locally grown foods). Don't buy into mass media advertising.
And for heaven's sake, pay attention to the real crisis: the gullibility of we peons. The real crisis will end when we stop listening to what people say and start paying attention to what people do.
As Oil Giants Lose Influence, Supply Drops
By JAD MOUAWAD
It is harder than ever for the major Western oil companies to find new prospects, even though they are awash in profits and eager to expand.
Excuse me? Awash in profits? Am I the only person who is outraged by this?
Yes, we need to come up with energy sources, and I for one want to see it come from renewable resources. That's something that should have been started in earnest 40 years ago when we had another "fuel crisis", but NOOOOO - the US government did not support alternatives to fossil fuels (petroleum) - and from what I heard, research in to fuel alternatives was pretty much squashed.
So here we are again with another crisis - actually, we have two: one energy and one economic.
The economic crisis is looking pretty artificial to me. There may be some sort of slowing of oil production, but the economic problems we are experience are actually caused by opportunistic taking of profits from raised prices based on... fear.
The US government supports this fear by supporting everyone in the oil food chain making massive profits on the the backs of us poor schmucks down here in the real world. And worse, the US government itself is making more and more tax dollars on the price gouging at the oil pump - for every jump in price at the pumps, there is an associated jump in the tax on each gallon.
No one in the chain except we peons at the bottom has any incentive whatsoever to fix anything.
This has all been nicely engineered, don't you think? First weaken the voting population by eroding individual freedom using the fear factor (been to an airport lately?). Then the sucker punch of the "fuel crisis". Throw in some toxic food scares and some global warming threats to keep us all soft. Use environmental litigation to stop any possibility of fixing any of this, even while dangling the hope of alternative (cheap) energy that will never come because there is no incentive to fix anything when everyone but the peons are making so much money. You see where this is going?
It's going to just get worse.
None of this was inevitable. All of this could have been prevented. You want some improvement? Just say NO to politics and start doing what needs to be doing yourself. Find out who's researching alternative energy and support them. Use that technology. Become a locavore (eat locally grown foods). Don't buy into mass media advertising.
And for heaven's sake, pay attention to the real crisis: the gullibility of we peons. The real crisis will end when we stop listening to what people say and start paying attention to what people do.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Fed up with Mexican wolves?
Be sure to attend the "Can't Take It Any More" meeting in Reserve NM on Wednesday July 9, 10 a.m. at the Reserve Community Center. If you can't take it any more, then get together with like-minded folks and stop taking it.
Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Is there a scientist in the house?
So today another news release is put out by "environmental" (litigation) groups. WildEarth Guardians - that's a new one. These litigation groups keep combining and recombining (like viruses) so they can have more corporate names to file more litigation.
But that's not the point of this post. The point is how long these people think the population is going to remain gullible. I mean, really - the news release says that a recent poll "shows overwhelming support for Mexican gray wolves among Southwest voters". Overwhelming? Really? 500 people who don't even live in or near the area in question? This is relevant... how?
The news release - and much of the propaganda by these litigation groups - strongly implies that the reason Mexican wolves aren't doing well in the project area is because of illegal killings and legal predator control. And the science behind this idea is where?
What studies have been done that show that wolves would otherwise be thriving if it wasn’t for "poaching"? Come on - everywhere else we've got predators that are breeding like crazy. Gray wolves are doing that in Yellowstone. Isn't it just possible that the real reason that Mexican wolves aren't thriving in Arizona and New Mexico is because... they aren't really native to the area, and they just aren't suited to it?
Science, please! For once can't we have facts and truth about Mexican wolves?
PS - be sure to attend the "Can't Take It Any More" meeting in Reserve NM on Wednesday July 9. If you can't take it any more, then get together with like-minded folks and stop taking it. Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
But that's not the point of this post. The point is how long these people think the population is going to remain gullible. I mean, really - the news release says that a recent poll "shows overwhelming support for Mexican gray wolves among Southwest voters". Overwhelming? Really? 500 people who don't even live in or near the area in question? This is relevant... how?
The news release - and much of the propaganda by these litigation groups - strongly implies that the reason Mexican wolves aren't doing well in the project area is because of illegal killings and legal predator control. And the science behind this idea is where?
What studies have been done that show that wolves would otherwise be thriving if it wasn’t for "poaching"? Come on - everywhere else we've got predators that are breeding like crazy. Gray wolves are doing that in Yellowstone. Isn't it just possible that the real reason that Mexican wolves aren't thriving in Arizona and New Mexico is because... they aren't really native to the area, and they just aren't suited to it?
Science, please! For once can't we have facts and truth about Mexican wolves?
PS - be sure to attend the "Can't Take It Any More" meeting in Reserve NM on Wednesday July 9. If you can't take it any more, then get together with like-minded folks and stop taking it. Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
Monday, June 2, 2008
Chilling facts on global warming
While it seems everyone knows that the planet is warming, few acknowledge what's really going on. How egocentric and narcissistic humans are, to assume that a few generations of human history tells the story of a planet. Decades and even centuries are not enough to determine anything about global climate change. Look at any records of global (planetary) history and you will see that we are in a natural temperature spike which has occurred before (without human help) and will occur again - approximately every 100-150 thousand years apart.
We are in a naturally occurring peak period of warmth on this planet at this time - but the vacation is about to end. In fact, what we humans are about to experience, and likely sooner than later, is global cooling. And believe me, global cooling is much scarier than global warming.
Over the millennia planetary temperatures are generally much colder than now. Even today, in the peak years of natural global warming, thousands of people on this planet die from the cold each year. You want a crisis? You’ll be seeing one - from cold - possibly in your lifetime. You want to do something about it? Well, humans aren’t going to change what’s to come, but we humans can prepare.
Get the facts about the big view, not the microscopic one of our own short human lifetimes. Consider what it will take for human life and achievement to continue when most of the planet is covered by ice. And you might as well enjoy this warm weather while you’ve got it.
Global chilling (facts and figures about global warming)
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