Cheap Is Good

When life support systems don't matter, one can accomplish a lot with a little bit of off-the-shelf (a/k/a COTS) stuff:

Father and son launch balloon into space

Steve Martin pulls the old handkerchief trick on Letterman (after faking an autograph) and Goodman erases my adult voice of many compromises that long has been overshadowing the child in me that knew seven billion people who believe in "one person can make a difference" is the simplest form of democracy now.

A roof over your head, a car in the garage and food in the refrigerator put you in the top 7% of the world's wealthiest.  Is that not enough to say "I'm no longer accumulating but sharing my wealth with those who, like me, needed a basic helping hand one day"?

Can we stop protests by identifying protest leaders [early and often] and pulling them into the majority discussions that the minority is protesting against?  In other words, treat the opposition as part of the bigger process, showing you have a longer view than the current issues indicate.

Eliminate childlike resistance by treating everyone as a grownup who can handle the convoluted truth.

We will amaze ourselves with our openness.

• Do we believe the truth will set us free?

OR:

• Are we afraid our basic beliefs contain so many falsehoods we have to protect them at all costs?

I am a tired old man, shrinking in mental strength while growing in girth, glad that the standard is being carried by others who know what the truth really is.  If you do or do not want the truth, I will not force you to change.  Feel free to ignore me - I am growing transparent, a shadow of my former self, happy to dream away the day without watching the second hand tick, tick, tick...

The lectures/tales here are done, as seriously wryly humourous as they were - it's up to those who want the truth to be heard to carry the message forward.

The truth is stranger and more familiar than you think possible.

Admittedly, we may not always have the emotional strength and logical fortitude to accept one paradigm shift after another in rapid succession but we can try as long as we believe that no matter what, the fellow members of our species and the species around us will share the resources for all of us to have the shelter, food, clothing and emotional support to thrive, knowing that life and death as we know them are intertwined, the ultimate form of recycling, systematic/systemic inefficiencies actually a form of feeding the carrion eaters, too.

Rain falling on metal rooftops

It was a damp and stormy night. Dank. Danke. Dansk.

A cold front met a warm front in the high and low pressure swirls spreading spindles of spinsters' bundles of spun steel wool.

A paralyzed cricket pulled itself across the Berber carpet in the barber shop quartet practice chamber.

Silver maple leaves left impressions on the cracked concrete floor.

Incantations illuminated LED wintry light sets strung highly.

Hot apple crumb pie, coconut cake and chocolate cherry dessert sugar-coated conversations set to PS3 and Longhorn/Aggie classics.

Ninth grade academy, Hilton Head escapes and John Battle primary school year set theory compete with claustrophobic six-inch cave height exploration for exciting achievements.

Chorus: Medical terminology is determined to slip in a dead language combination or two.

Limits limit only when limitations beat imitations for meditation and Haitian medical station sensations.

Backfeed Loops

The son of a Jewish farmer from Tazewell, TN, becomes an insurance agent in Kingsport and marries the daughter of an FBI agent. They settle down in Bellevue, WA, to raise their kids. He becomes a harbour pilot and she the owner/operator of a B&B.

An Alabama minister joins the military as a chaplain and 20-plus years later "retires" to Rogersville, TN, as a Presbyterian pastor, his wife playing the organ and leading the choir.

Wiccans sacrifice chickens in the woods.

Thousands of slaughtered turkeys marinate for an annual festival meal.

Sandy and John keep their neighbours safe from tornado threats.

Parents are addicted to parenting - are all dysfunctional addictions tied to displaced parenting skills?

Will governments require finger/eye/voice prints, blood/urine/skin samples, psychological profiles and brain scans of recipients of public assistance (public schooling, welfare/social security, pork barrel earmarks, military/civilian government subcontracting, drivers/passengers using public motorways, any government-subsidised service, anyone who uses government-issued money (physical and/or electronic)) as well as those paying into (through taxes, fees, etc.) and working directly or indirectly for providers of public assistance?

In other words, what if we turned every transaction into a Dept. of Homeland Security procedural process?

For instance, to use your mobile phone for a monetary/barter exchange, your phone would be required to make at least two or three biometric verifications of your identity.

Same for credit/debit card use and computer-based purchases.

What new private-exchange markets and other side effects would occur, given the above?

How many [more] of us would incorporate ourselves to hide our personal identities?

What are a corporation's unique "biometric" characterisations?

How would we ensure agents are registering the real biometric data of people they claim to represent?

While you follow the smoke trail of those thoughts, I'm pursuing the results of an experiment where a three-dimensional person like me has communicated with non-3D entities outside of the matter-based universe in which we think we live.

Squeezing my cameo through the eye of a needle, eh!

How do I know my cameo - my agent, my representative, my shadow - accurately presents myself to others and back to me?

I don't. I believe my mirrored reflection is me because of nearly instantaneous feedback but it isn't.

Until the majority can see what the few can see, it's an illusion that visionaries have to talk about in virtual terms.

If you met your antimatter self, would you know what you saw before you annihilated yourself?

Ready For The Satin Pillow

Death is personal, isn't it?

Whatever we've done - raising kids, living alone, collecting clay pots, raising cattle on the edge of a desert during a drought - is done after we're done.

Our loves and our losses go with us. The living go on with the loss of our love intact but losing intensity like a mountain disappearing in fog.

Old grievances may be reinterpreted by succeeding generations.

We get back to the pebble in the pond.

Statements made behind closed doors echo strangely amplified, the decay effect bouncing baby waves, too.

Best to air the grievances and begrudging statements as if all can hear, rather than install fear and confusion in descendants who have no idea why they repeat your inexplicable behaviour after you're dead.

I heard a father say, "Son, tell them what you want to be when you grow up," the father's face red with pride. The son replied, "I want to be a sniper and kill Muslims."

I asked them if they knew any Muslims. They did not. They only knew that Muslims hate America (their knowledge imparted to them by a select few media outlets/pundits, including the images shown on TV of cheering crowds in the Middle East after the attacks of 9/11/01).

I told them about American Muslim friends of mine willing to defend the same American dream as the patriotic father and son in front of me.

The conversation changed.

I'm not an evangelist - I don't preach or proselytise. I can only look to our future and project backward what this moment needs to be for us to succeed within the ecosystems available to us.

Resources.

Friends have told me my recent blog entries cast doubt like a dark, suspicious shadow on the moment and into the future.

The effect was intentional. I wanted to clear the air and to do so required stirring up dust, not sweeping it under the rug. I'll do it again, I'm sure.

I will repeat myself when our future requires such.

Happiness and humour are two squirrels chasing each other for fun, despite snakes and hawks lurking nearby.

Thanks to the Rogersville Produce Market, Jimmy and Whitney at McKinney's Restaurant in Hale Springs Inn and Sweet Creams making a delivery after a death in the family. Congrats to Williams, McBee, Hopson and Pearl in the win over VCU.

My friends in the cartel business are just as curious about the special request I'll call them for as the call the NCAA's going to make soon.

Have you ever been made or tagged because of your call sign?

Who's the Equaliser in your life? What's the last thing you want to be remembered for after you're gone?

Life goes on without us but our children's children's children['s children['s children...]...] depend on the actions we made right now while we're alive.

Let us find reason (rather than reasons) and logic in whatever triggers our emotional outbursts. We are not lemons or lemmings (or even lemurs, I don't think). We can choose the financial sources for our mortgages and information resources for family rearing without resorting to stereotypes.

Orange You Glad?

I'm thinking out loud here, letting thoughts flow through fingers on a non-designed course.

I woke up this morning with the word "stasis" and the word "status" competing to become "statice," "statics," or "state." Too bad I don't remember the dream associated with the words at play.

Duck hunting, blinds, and camo in Scottsboro, along with Ann at Walmart, Gail at UBC and Karli at Krystal.

By keying in all the groups in concert with and opposition to one another, we get to see why seven billion can resolve issues together, including peacelike negotiations and warlike fighting.

Humour does not mean peace or war. For many, the daily struggles omit all three.

I am a lazy guy, about as demotivated as a person can get who knows his lifelong dream will not be realised in his lifetime.

But I continue on. Hope is a stronger word than despair.

A messenger carrying a fraction of a message multiple generations in length knows that the game is neither won nor lost in a single generation.

I live as if my life never began and never ends, every action of mine making a significant difference, no matter how seemingly insignificant - an eternal symphony by a faceless/nameless composer, conducted by an invisible concertmaster.

My teachers guaranteed that the responsibility of freedom is not easy to handle. Every person adjusts according to individual capabilities.

I use humour, the sharpest, strongest, fiercest and gentlest talent I have.

I have no enemies but there are those I watch carefully, because I know many take advantage of the fact life as we know it is inherently not fair.

I live here and now, no when/where else.

Some would give corporations a corporeal reality but people run corporations. Corporations don't live and breathe except as memes in our shared social interactions. They are means for people to pay mortgages and raise children. Not an end in themselves.

As long as corporate officers and shareholders proport (and purport) job creation as the fuel for corporations, then I'll focus on the byproducts and waste that make corporations inefficient in the larger ecosocioeconomic picture.

We can talk all day about hierarchies, matrices and flat organisations laid bare by social media but at the end of every workday most people are heading back to their home lives dominated by a separate set of social media dominators.

Which one of the following would you call the most normal family situation?:

a. An Amazonian tribe isolated from modern society,
b. An Amish community living and working on farms insulated against the modern society around them,
c. An extended family living in a set of high-rise flats and working in the middle of a large metropolitan area fully participating in modern society.

What you say against a group or idea perpetuates that group or idea. The best way to oppose something is through silence.

Better yet, build a positive alternative that attracts people away from supporting the group or idea you oppose.

Negativity is a means to a dead end (and there will always be those who build a detour that avoids a dead end as long as possible, in order to extend their negative message pathway as long as they can before their untimely end is met).

Am I auditory or visual by default? I'm not sure. These words imply otherwise.

Thanks to Lamar and those who demo'd the color Nook at B&N in Choo-Choo city; Oh Henry's restaurant; the Times-News for local sports coverage.

Hot Air Cools Off And Falls Back Down

In the subcurrents, I catch films like The Shock Doctrine (based on Naomi Klein's book) and a refutation of the same at reason.com.

After all, I'm still looking at the whole species here, using local subcultures as examples of the bigger trend's effects.

I ask myself if an aggressive/nonviolent member of our species, who accumulates wealth through insight and hard work, is responsible to other members of the species.  You know, the "Atlas Shrugged" mentality.

I ask myself if our species is, in fact, a species at all.

All answers are valid until proven otherwise.

These thoughts and investigations, interesting though they may be, do not get me much closer to getting off this planet.

However, one must keep one's eyes open to untold futures, even if one must repeat oneself for clarity and boring accompaniment basslines.

Keep the opposition feeling important with their protests so they don't do any serious damage.

But you don't know what those with whom I liaise call the opposition, do you?

You just think you do.

It's more simple and more complicated than you think.

If you think.

I like my emotional states but cooler heads prevail, as if logic, a tiny part of our species, is the only part of thinking that matters.  They're wrong.  They don't think enough.

Humour is part logical and part emotional.

China has one more opportunity to get this right.  If it doesn't, then some want to take 'em out the old-fashioned way, dragging India, Pakistan and southern Asia down with 'em.  I'm computing the odds to see if I should increase my military-industrial complex investments or buy some quiet countryside far away from the action and let the situation play out the way the Committee of 7.5 prefers, no matter what that is.

Either way, I and my family will profit.

Like I say, my family is you - seven-billion strong - some will profit and some will lose.  That's just the way it is.

Even backyard streetball has winners and losers.  Choose your teams carefully - a true leader finds strength in every team member.  Can you?

Another Battlefront

In the battle for supremacy of "what if" scenarios, Lockheed Martin (nee Martin Marietta, GE Aerospace, ...) proposes its proposals for posing over the Moon.  What's in store at the other big guns' houses - Northrop-Grumman, etc.?

Journalists Interviewing Journalists

In non-news, here's a blogger, me, blogging about a blogger's nonnews blog entries.

An Island All My Own

In this alternate storyline about real life, I feel like China is expressing its feeling of being boxed in by the rest of the world through the aggressive behaviour of its puppet empire, the DPRK.

I prefer gentle humour but I can be cruel at times.  It's that smugness showing through a lot lately, knowing more than I think I should know about what's going to happen next.

It would be easy to use the death of a few South Koreans to pit humanity against itself again.  Our species has shown the willingness to go to global war for lesser reasons.

Look at how dark North Korea has appeared.

Is Ireland far behind?

There is a war already taking place.  Hillary knows what I'm talking about.  She knows when to back off and let the tide of war wash over the land.

Makes me want to visit Germany and understand more about the background of Der Hetzer, Joseph Goebbels, and the exhibit on Hitler.

History is history, if not historic.

A drop of dew.  A drop of sap.  A solid piece of amber.

Das ist richtig!

Was ist das?

To tell a true story, one must sometimes take us through the dark forest of history to better demonstrate where the future of the tale may take us.

Now that I own Ireland (by extension, of course, through this story), I have a whole culture's history with which to play.  Global anthropological monopolising, one country at a time.

In theory, to reduce the value of foreign ownership of your treasury, you reduce your government down to a minimal size, declare your government bankrupt and make the foreign owners poor once again.

I'm going to practice with Ireland to see if that theory'll work and then apply it to other countries of greater strategic interest.

I'm sorry, my South Korean friends and colleagues, but the DPRK is not worth bothering with.  Economic war is much more fun to me right now.

Thanks to Neosha, Dallas and Starr at Honeybaked Ham along with the Hsv PD officer standing duty over the free samples of smoked turkey.

The Championship Club

I ran into the homeless guy who bought the Book of the Future from me.

Turns out he hasn't burned all the old pencil shavings and wanted to trade them for a rainproof tent-in-a-parka-in-a-heated-grocery-cart.

Thus, because I still have the pencil sharpener, I can combine the old with the new to accurately see the future again!

Glory be!  Hallelujah!  The South shall rise again!

Oops, sorry.  Wrong song.  That's what I get for believing Daniel Day-Lewis is the perfect Lincoln.  He's a better dentist portrayer.

Some say Hendrick is ruining the sport of racing by dominating for so long.  I still wonder about his so-called cancer recovery, conveniently letting him off the hook for financial obligations.  Can't have everything, I guess.  I love NASCAR but it continues to be an insider's semi-regional sport.  Support your local track.

Back to the main storyline.

Now that we accept the fact that the public dole is no longer the status quo, will we begin to eliminate other entitlements obligations, doing away with social support networks altogether?

In other words, if you can't make your own mini-empire the hard way, you don't get to suck off the pig of a public teet, no matter how hard your luck or case may be.

It's an interesting experiment we're conducting, forcing people to do away with creature comforts at the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder in order to focus on their future through making wise investments instead of buying quasi-luxury goods.

That is, if people want to climb the ladder.

Otherwise, it's a simple task to keep them fat, dumb and happy amassing stuff that depreciates and deteriorates quickly, increasing the wealth of those building and selling the cheap goods to the socially unmotivated masses.

Life is what it is.  I'm not here to change it.

Observe and report.

Meanwhile, ensure that my wife and I are increasing our holdings while satisfying the cheapest of our desires in the moment (i.e., a practical form of delayed gratification).  Also, while on holiday, buying more than one of items we like so we can share them with others in the future.

Like the old saying goes, "Jesus saves.  Moses invests."  It's never too late to have the best of both worlds.

Accurate Throwing Motion

How long can you keep a people energised?

Do you think an athlete with long hair is manly or feminine? Do you think facial piercings are signs of independence that you wear in unison with all the other independent facial jewellery wearers?

In other words, do you spend your earnings or invest them?

How many thousands or millions of your people have you sacrificed to preserve a way of living? How many of your people are buried on foreign soil in defense of their way of living, too?

What is the big picture but a bunch of subcultures working together toward the same or very similar goals?

What about those in opposition? Do you tolerate or eliminate their views?

Stay tuned. The future has the answers whether you're looking for them or not.

To clarify, the local police force is doing its job; it's the TSA's feelgood fondling policies that burn my goat. The Mossad has better and more effective methods for deterrorising buses on the ground and in the air.

Congrats to Boeing and Bigelow.

Enemies are where you want to find them. Vigilance, not vigilantes. Address the threats and don't distress the puppets (unless hopelessness is a major (not side) effect, along with despair).

Gravitas: Highly Entertaining

Want to know what you know you don't know by looking at what others say they know but don't?

If you don't, that's fine.

If you do, go here (comments included).

On many days, remembering my accounts and passwords is more than enough.  On the days in-between, when time does not exist, all matter is dark, anti- or otherwise mattering a smattering.

As Scene On Mars

"Guess what I found today?"

"More rock and dust?"

"Yes, but not just any rock and dust. The material in my dune buggy is one of the rarest on Mars."

"And?"

"What's it worth to you?"

"What is it?"

"I don't know. None of my instruments could identify it."

"Let me see it."

"No. I remember what you did the last time."

"Look, I'm sorry about that. How was I to know the lab techs would destroy the whole load while analysing it?"

"Give something in trade."

"How about a million Martian credits? You know I'm good for it."

"Other than you and I, who else recognises Marcreds as real currency?"

"You say that every time we argue like this but when the Wells Fargo electronic shed arrives you don't hesitate cashing in the credits then."

"No one else on base does."

"So what?"

"So what'll you trade me for my buggyload of stuff?"

"How about three unlimited days on my ion Skykite?"

"I've already got 30 sols' worth I haven't used."

"What if I manufacture you a synthleaf?"

"What kind do you have?"

"What would you want?"

"Have you seen the latest Martian microbacterial forms they've put together?"

"Yeah."

"Make me a synthleaf that the bacteria can feed on and on which the bacteria leave a visible trail."

"How many do you want?"

"Let's go look at the stuff I gathered and work out the deal."

"Okay. By the way, what're your plans with the synthleaves?"

"I think I'll put some of the bacteria in the center of a synthleaf and take bets on which bacteria will eat its way to the edge first."

"Sounds great. It might take a few days. Who are you going to trust to guard the synthleaf when you're asleep?"

"I'm not. You and I are going to bet who slips in and cheats. I'll have the DNA sniffer running when I'm snoozing."

"Always the crafty one."

"Hey, my synthparents didn't hatch a dummy in a Mars incubator!"

"Oh yeah? I heard your dad was a male prostitute who didn't use a condom."

"And I heard your synthparents weren't real to begin with. You're just some goo leftover from a bad experiment that a lab tech accidentally fertilised. You want this stuff or not?"

"Some mature six-year old you are. You act like you're two. I'll give you three synthleaves for the whole load."

"Half a load for ten leaves."

"Two leaves for half."

"Eight leaves."

"For the whole load?"

"Half. Plus I'll let you pick who gets to bet."

"Five."

"It's a deal."

"And I get the first option on the second half."

"Of course you will. You're my best fellow field worker!"

"Top o' the class!"

"With the best appendage attachments money can buy."

"Speaking of which, do you have the adapter to attach the buggyload to your back?"

"Sure, it's in my right leg storage compartment.  Hang on while I switch it out with my fieldwork com system antenna."

More Catchup With My Saucy Posts

The Kinect hacks, presidential veto, another Bushism, sounding off about tinnitus, rebashing in the Times, rebashing in the Telegraph, where stuff is/n't made.

And so, here I am, all alone, a little boy staring up at the stars, asking if there's life out there I should or shouldn't know about.

But I do know.

I understand all and see nothing.

I am but a single person, standing in the dark, watching the flashing lights of silhouetted planes, the steady reflection of planets, the craters of the full moon, and wondering.

There is nothing I cannot know.

And so, here I sit, asking myself what do I care about tax cuts.

Do we take the path to exclusivity?

Do we take the path to shared democratic ideals?

All while saving a political entity from imploding.

Oh, one other thing - the following sentence should not be read by parents or children who object to what they think of as profanity.

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To those who would choose to "save" us from terrorists by turning this country into a high-security search-and-seizure-at-your-leisure jackbooted society, FUCK YOU!  My ancestors and my peers have fought and fight to protect my freedom, not to subject me to BIG BROTHER body/thought control methodology/practices.  I like my local police force to serve and protect, not force the general populace to submission.  Just like my father, who serves as the local neighbourhood watch coordinator and participant/trainer for the police department citizen academy of the local city and teaches at the local university - seek balance.

It's A Problem For All Of Us

Addiction is an addition, a cost, a liability, a reduction in recyclable body parts:

China, a country going up in smoke

Is soy or Tolstoy your future source to stop feeling famished?

Who do you like better, Rita Burkholder or Florence and the Machine?

An Ejit Email

News with views:

Welcome to Issue #51 of The Daily Feed. If this email was forwarded to you by a friend, you can subscribe on this page. The Daily Feed is published several times a week when we have news, information and helpful tips to share. Unsubscribe instructions are at the end of this message. You can read previous editions of The Daily Feed on our blog but note that posts to our blog are delayed 24 hours or more.

This week I turned off Google instant, not because I don't like living in an instant world, but because it limits my search results to 10. If you're doing any kind of SEO research, 10 results just doesn't cut it. There's a bug that causes Google to continually show 10 results even if you asked it for 100 using advanced search. It's caused by Google instant and you need to turn it off to get back to all you can eat search results. 

In other news, a well known white hat hacker (that means he's mostly a good guy) was detained for several hours when re-entering the US this week while his laptop and cellphone was confiscated and searched. I did some googling and it turns out that the border search exception lets border agents ignore the 4th amendment which requires a warrant for search and seizure. Then a member on ycombinator's hacker news replied to a post of mine saying that in fact the border extends 100 miles inland. If you're a blogger on the coast relying on anything in the 4th amendment, good luck with that. 

Every now and then the government does actually get it right. The BBC is reporting that global spam email is down 47% after a combination of government arrests of spammers and work by private firms to shut down spam botnets. 

And finally, a Reddit member got back to their apartment and found their pizza eaten by their roommate with this note waiting for them (click it if your browser shrinks it).

Regards,

Mark Maunder

Feedjit Founder & CEO

Say Goodbye To Communities When You Shop Online!

Being an Amazon customer and seller (via my books for sale on the site), I have to ask myself if I'm doing the right thing by avoiding tax payments to municipalities:

Amazon openly skirts the tax laws

Meanwhile, tax cuts occupy my thoughts.

I give thanks to Brandon Jones, an orphan from Tuskegee and a happy server at Beauregard's and his coworker who used to listen to his mother's tape of Black Sabbath music; Troy at the Rave; others who sold gift certificates to my wife at Chick Fil-A, Panera Bread and Starbucks; my nephew, Jonathan, and his new bride to-be.

Did You Really Say You Know How To Read?

So, while some of my friends go off into the deep end about things they cannot control, I deal with reality in another way.

A few scientists on retainer want to start up the earthquake experiments again, just to prove they have technology nobody else has figured out, let alone perfected.  We'll see - I'm too busy analysing another simulation of Époque proportions, which means they'll go ahead with their preparations without me.

To give voice to those with whom I disagree is not what I want to do with the limited number of waking hours left to me at middle age.

However, in order to ensure that therefore in accordance with the ubiquity and superfluous information floating around, I add just as much fluff to these blogs as a movie that producers figure they can stretch into two, filling cels with enough cameos to choke a British automobile made at the turn of [last] century.

What's next?  Well, that's what I've been wondering.  I know the goal in any Afghanistanical military parade is not to win the war but use the space to practice target shooting and weapons viability assessments ("No, boss, not another readiness review!" cry the unwashed programming/assembling masses.)

History will finally be revised to show that throughout history all battles in the Afghan mountains and valleys were solely for show and not for any real strategic value.  A giant playground for generals, if you will.  Instead of Custer's Last Stand, it's a Hotdogging Stand with Custard for dessert (but not deserters).

That's all, folks.  Another Saturd'y mornin' of domestic househusbandry, tapin' and staplin' broken things the wife wants fixed before the holidays.  And then, another afternoon and evenin' of football time in Tennessee, where the Volunteers march upon Fort Nashborough for a battle with the riverboat captains (uh, I mean Commodores) on the shores of the Cumberland River.

The New European Language Revisited

As part of the debt restructuring negotiations, the European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c." Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik emthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Routers Root for Reuters

Fuzzy math?  You make the call:

Taxpayers fed exhaust smoke of GM bailout

Makes me wonder who's going to get what really has to be done about so-called tax cuts in America.  I'm going to think about it over the weekend.  Not an easy answer.

Meanwhile, Llosa asks who's going to keep paying to keep his house, not him, a museum.

Does a Fork Have Three Tines or Four?

In this parallel universe, I bounce the ideas you give me against the protagonists wandering around waiting for instructions on what they're supposed to do next with their lives.

A single word changes the course of these fictional characters' purposeful campaigns.

Should I let them continue on toward more concentration of riches, exclusive information ownership and bigger, stronger, more luxurious gates/walls preventing access to the masses?

I am an individual who works in this imaginary world but does not live here.

As the information gatekeeper, I have access to both of my imaginary friends' worlds.

I will not live to see how their scenarios here completely play out in comparison to the real world.

"Is this a morality play?" I ask myself when a word spoken in imaginary and real terms has the same (or equal) effect.

I try to convince myself that I don't know what I or my colleagues in the real world are talking about.

Empires come and go.  No one lives forever here or there.  Languages spoken and not written are forgotten.

In this imaginary world, friends tell me that they feel betrayed by their popularly-chosen leader.  Since they don't have a "vote of no confidence" or a call for new elections to force a change of leadership, they're banking on other methods to voice their lack of confidence and desire for a new leader.

They believe local leaders who are emboldened by this current superregional leader are using redistricting and school closing methods to cause a "flight" of specific populations from neighbourhoods so the local leaders can get their own friends into the neighbourhoods (and more cheaply, too).

I'm glad all of this is imaginary because, if I had the slightest inkling that it was true, well...

I asked my associates Sal and Vince, who provide bodyguard personal security services for the Committee of 7.5, if they had heard any of these rumours, they being in on the know and the know-how that ain't nobody's business no-how.

They said, yeah, they'd heard it, too.  They was watching the real estate prices like all good investors - houses, flats, estates, commercial properties catering to the military, that sort of thing - seeing as how it never hurts to turn a tidy profit when no one ain't looking.

They asked me why I was interested, me being all about the species and the big picture and all that.

I told them it was simply a matter of a subplot in a story I was writing.  They nodded.  Enough said.  They knew all about digging up plots and turning them into subplots.

You've seen how they operate - a burning cigarette accidentally dropped on the carpet and a high-rise burns (boins) down, a brake line breaks and a car careens out of control down a hillside, a Hollywood type don't pay her dues and she gets what's coming to her, some "kids" tear into a laboratory for kicks, leaving graffiti around and a virus spreads unchecked.

Life is full of mishaps that resemble art.

Their priest tells them to turn the other cheek but he don't say nothing about what they're supposed to do when they're looking the other way with their cheek turned.

That's why I don't judge my friends, colleagues and associates.  Business is business.  Money makes the world of money go up and down.  Favours make sure we all got something to hide and the means to pay for keeping them hidden.

If you want another Houdini, Chamberlain or Hitler, I can't stop you.  History if full of history about people who can't learn from history.

Besides, this is just fiction.  It's not like my friends are trying to tell me the truth.

I mean, if you picked up a metal object on the road and the object had one end split in two, would you call it a tuning fork or an eating fork missing a couple of tines?  Some of my old mountain friends would call it a miniature divining rod.  I would just call it a fork in the road.

The decision's up to you.  You can START negotiations now or put them off until the future.  If you put them off, can you prove you did so because you were investigating a trail of information that someone was trying to hide from you before ratification was completed?  Would the people believe your story about the reasons for saying no on the crucial day when you needed them to say yes for you one more time?

Sanity

Sanity is looking at the same thing over and over and finding something new every time:

Another look at the nighttime sky

= = = = = = = = = = =

Georgia State: A better football win record in 2010 than Georgia Tech in 1980...hmm...sanity is saying the game against Bama was like a bowl game; in other words, good practice for the offseason.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Arduino or smartphone to power and cruise the skies over the 'burbs, boroughs and barrios in a "Superman" UAV, an unseen hero sanely spotting trouble and informing authorities where crime doesn't pay?

Capital!

After reading "Angela's Ashes," and in light of the similarity of names, Merkel announced today the annexation of Ireland and the movement of the headquarters of the Fourth Reich from Berlin to Limerick.

Greek politicians, disappointed that they were not chosen for the new capital, staged a protest, insisting that all future Olympics will be held in their country in order to make up for the debacle of the last one they hosted.  Of course, they will not pay contractors for any work in future Olympics, either.  After all, debt is a source of national pride - it's all Greek to them.

The U.S. is said to be in negotiations with Germany to split Ireland into eastern and western "Management Zones" so companies in both countries can hide their profits from taxation while still claiming to have headquarters in their home country.

Russia and China deny involvement in causing the economic collapse of Ireland despite strong evidence linking them to taking out risky loans to finance overpriced holiday getaways for their favourite pols.

Honour Your Mother and Father

Although some would deny the heritage of their mothers and thus invite the animosity of their electorate (both of which I find hard to accept), I am glad my nieces and nephews are proud to claim both their parents (so do I) as important inspirations in their lives.

One example - paintings by my niece, Maggie:

Another Ten Steps

The challenge - to think and record thoughts at least once every cycle of sleep/wake - does not include a requirement for quality or quantity.

Dreams and visions mate and clash with reality frequently, constantly, with no regard for consequences.

How does one listen to seven billion sets of spoken thoughts and rise up out of them with a single shared future of continuous hope repeatedly realised?

Can we separate blunder and bureaucracy from greed and intentional waste?

Hiking through mud, one sees the clear blue sky beaconing (or beckoning - take your pick).

Not everyday can one find another who is blissfully happy with the simple fact that being alive is more than enough.

One's visions, no matter how grand or ordinary, are one's own to compare to one's self-awareness.

After one's dreams become reality, what does one do with one's self?

Does one stop running after the bear has given up the chase?

After the baton is passed and the relay race of our species is well taken care of, how does one quietly slip into oblivion, happy to sit and ponder one's anonymity?

Leaves fall. The planet spins. Youth has left this body long ago. Youthfulness remains. The curiosity reigns.

Individual peace. The absence of time. The obliteration of earthly wants.

Happy with an ordinary life, cut free of the surrounding tug of threads attached to the extraordinary social expectational web.

Born with a smile on one's face, indicative of pure internal happiness, one goes along with others and their dreams/goals to reassure them they'll find the peace one was given congenitally.

One hopes everyone copes or adjusts to the gaps between happiness, reality and dreams.

Words on a page. Alive.

Some Days I Forget I'm A Species-First Specimen

Whither the brain-drain goeth?

My Wife's Suggestion:

A showdown between the Alabama A&M and Ohio University marching bands.

Now that's an idea worth pursuing, maybe during an exhibition game between the two schools' football teams?

Meanwhile, I'm still thinking, waiting for some computer programs to finish calculating output for analysis and comic consideration.

Granted You Know What You're Doing

Are you ready for the webcast?

Two Platforms, One HID

Mac vs. and PC

Two Words

Integration? Nyet!

One Word

Restrepo

Dichroic Dichotomies Bombastically Fantastic

Found for sale at roadside stand - fried bedbugs and ground flax seeds - mmmmm.....  Never miss a business opportunity when there's free protein for the baking.

So which state functions do you care about - subsidies for business entities or subsidies for subcities?

I want a couple of days to step back and ponder the impermeable impervious impenetrable perforations.  How, for example, does one step in and out of spacetime if spacetime does not exist?  How does one appear to those who only know spacetime as the working model for daily living/survival?

I'll leave you with these thoughts by Ashleigh Brilliant:

ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT, QUESTIONS AND IDEAS, AUG 2009- NOV 2010. Part I.
 

1. Do red and green mean stop and go everywhere in the world?

2. How close did the Germans come to invading England in World War I?

3. Is it possible that the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa once had an affair?

4. Trade-name for a new brassiere: the CANDELA BRA.

5. Idea: write my own Constitution, beginning “I the person.”

6. Lists for the listless.

7. Are shoulders the only thing we can shrug?

8. Needed: a car that runs on URINE.

9. The Day I Didn’t Die.

10. The two great World Wars had many similarities and some striking differences. Where can I find a good comparative summary of these?

11. Do people with foot fetishes tend to become podiatrists?

12. Am I right in saying that, unlike the body, the mind discharges no waste products?

13. Good title: NOT NOTHING.

14. Good conversation starter: Complete this sentence: “My mother used to . . . .”

15. Did horse-and-buggy drivers ever use rear-view mirrors?

16. Question: Why “knuckle dusters”? What does the “duster” part mean?

17. We can say “there is only now” because past and future are in a certain sense unreal -- but we can’t say “there is only here” because we know other places exist.

18. Reality For Beginners.

19. Are there people who can put on their trousers both legs at once?

20. Do all Americans say “A to Zee” and all Brits say “A to Zed”? (This could be the basis of a detective story which hinges upon whether the perpetrator is American or British.)

21. Dear Obnoxious Cell Phone User,
I realize you are minding your own business (and that you wish I would mind mine) – but must you do so at the top of your voice?

22. And I heard God say, “THIS LIFE IS ON ME.”

23. I cut my finger on the First-Aid box.

24. I’ve heard of games involving a “greased pig.” How about an ordinary game of catch in which the players’ hands are greased. The game could be called BUTTERFINGERS.

25. When did a reigning British monarch first visit a British colony (not counting Ireland)?

26. How many home accidents occur when people are putting on or taking off their pants?

27. Question: Where did Hitler get the Negro extras who were sometimes needed in German films during the Nazi era? What became of them?

28. How many American black soldiers were taken prisoner by the Germans during World War II, and how were they treated?

29. Idea: an illustrated Who’s Who of our local homeless population.

30. Which animals need least sleep, and are there any which never sleep at all?

31. I find 3 different meanings of Amadeus: “Love of God,” “Loves God,” and “God’s Love.”

32. Why was there no Roman anti-cruelty organization picketing the Colosseum? Has society as a whole actually become more “humane”? Is this “progress”?

33. Isn’t the song “Thank Heaven For Little Girls” dangerously close to sexual deviance?

34. Is a point well taken the same as a point well made?

Cyclone

Faith is attempting the leap over the chasm you don't know you can jump.

Do you have to ask first?

Thanks to Patsy at Carson's Grille, Charlie's staff in Rogersville, and the beautiful young lady who renewed my driver's license at the courthouse.

Watching the driving behaviour of a Hsv City Schools van (44287 MU), I wonder if those who serve the children of school age should obey the traffic laws?

Smugness is a fault, a vice, a pleasure, a pain of mine. I don' want to know when I've picked the winners - I want the winners to keep our species and our ecosystems expanding and thriving, putting family in front of intolerance.

Science And Engineering Through A Comic's Viewpoint

[oldies but goodies from a female friend at the Nuclear Operations Directorate (NOD) - the jokes can be retold for either gender]


Understanding Engineers – Take One

Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said,
         
"Where did you get such a great bike?"
         
The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said,
"Take what you want."
         
The second engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fitted you anyway."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two
         
To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
         
Understanding Engineers - Take Three
         
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.
         
The engineer fumed, "What's with those blokes? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!"
         
The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!"
         
The priest said, "Here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him."
         
He said, "Hello, George! what's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"
         
The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind fire fighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."
         
The group fell silent for a moment.
         
The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."
         
The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there's anything he can do for them."
         
The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"
         
Understanding Engineers - Take Four
         
What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?

Mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets.
         
Understanding Engineers - Take Five
         

The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"

The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"

The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"

The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Six

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.
One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints."

Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections."

The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer.  Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area ?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Seven

Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.

Understanding Engineers - Take Eight

An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."

He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."

The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a Princess, I'll stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want."

Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog? Now that's cool!"

Three Words

Vick is baaaa-a-a-a-a-a-a-ck!!!!  A Hokie through and through.

Now, if only Virginia will get its extension agents system working for all counties.

Maxwell's Magic Hammer

Information (facts and rumours?) is more powerful than you thought:

Stairmaster Beads

Presidential Precedents

President Obama decided to stop at the studios of the Weather Channel to see what the next rubberised-face weathercaster would look like:

The Prez Meets The Future

[more here]

Bob Costas Steps Out Of The Closet...

...with new scarf design (but is that all?) - my wife says she likes it (the scarf, that is).

[OPENING SEQUENCE]

Major international airport.  Airport ticket counter.  Camera shows the back of an old man wearing bowler hat while standing at counter buying ticket.  The camera pulls back to show long line of people waiting in line behind old man.  Several people back of old man we see familiar blond-haired chap.  Camera turns to show closeup of the blond, Daniel Craig (DC), intently watching the old man.

DC follows old man through airport security (both taking patdown rather than body scanner) and onto plane.

After plane reaches cruising altitude, DC steps into lavatory.

The camera shows back of the old man as he walks into adjoining lavatory.

Closeup of old man's face in mirror.  It's Sean Connery (SC).

SC takes off hat, unbuttons his shirt and starts to remove upper body mask, slowly revealing Roger Moore.  Moore turns to camera and smiles.

Back to DC's lavatory.  Closeup of DC in mirror.  He unbuttons his shirt and slowly removes upper body mask.  Camera angles do not reveal face until the mask is completely removed.  Mirror shot shows it's Michael Caine.  Caine turns to camera and says, "Who did you think it was?  Don't you know I always wanted to be James Bond?"

Caine removes upper body mask and reveals Clive Owen.  He turns to mirror and says, "Me, too."

Back to SC's lavatory.  Moore removes his upper body mask and reveals Timothy Dalton.  He turns to mirror and says, "And I never really wanted to - I'm a serious actor..."

Lavatory door opens and John Cleese leans in, saying, "...but it's hard to resist the money."

Pierce Brosnan steps into camera view.  "I thought that was my line."  He removes upper body mask to reveal George Lazenby.

Lazenby says, "But I'm the one who had the Mrs. Bond for all ages."

Dianna Rigg steps into view and says, "That's right, darling.  There can be only one."  She shoots John Cleese and Timothy Dalton, hooks her arm into Lazenby's and they walk down the aisle toward their seats.

The camera pans around to Patrick Macnee, who leans on a cane (resembling an umbrella) and stands beside the dead bodies.  "What can I say?  I always played second fiddle to her.  Is this loo taken?"  He reaches into lavatory to put on bowler hat.

Camera pulls back to reveal plane is full of actors from Bond and Avengers films.