#Nymwars: Content is King, and King is Content.

My patience has ended. 


I'm just about to pull the pin on Google+ so that I can take some time and think about my reliance on other Google services. The entire debate tells me that for whatever reason, google as a corporation has jumped the shark and I do not feel comfortable investing my social capital in it.

And if that social capital were not valuable, they would not be locked in a death match with Facebook over data-mining futures, and governments would not be petitioning them for their databases.

Oddly, my decision is not based on whether I have anything to hide. I have always made the point of never putting anything on the Internet that could put me at risk, and I make a point of distancing myself from those who do.

"Content is King, and King is Content." The reality of the Internet is there is always someplace else - and moreover, wherever you are will cease to be anyplace sometime in the future.  One SURE way of ensuring that the interesting people will leave is to send out invitations to the "bridge and tunnel set," the sort of people who think that the Luxor casino is even better than the actual pyramids of Egypt.

This is about investment, and where my time is best spent and to what ends. Google, at the moment, seems like a very poor investment for my social capital and I shall be investigating other social investment vehicles.

You see, I'm a fucking punk;  I understand the difference between civility and civilization. "Civility" is being careful about the words used to boast about raping a peasant wench.

"Civilization" is a condition in which it's considered wrong to rape peasants, and a right and proper outcome is to bring rapists to justice, regardless of their station in life.

If that distinction is unclear to you - and it seems to me that it is - a discussion about "civility" as being a way to make things "better" will create no better thing that I care to participate in.

The Ironic Ethics of Wernher Von Braun

Air Force Cites New Testament, Ex-Nazi, to Train Officers on Ethics of Launching Nuclear Weapons | Truthout

This story changed even before I got it published. Update below.

There are certain levels of irony that tend to render the ordinary human speechless. There are ways of getting through, and Jason Leopold guts it out with his usual determined outrage and the aid of direct quotation.

One of the most disturbing slides quotes Wernher Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer. Von Braun is not being cited in the PowerPoint as an authority on a liquid hydrogen turbopumps or a launch vehicle's pogo oscillations, rather he's specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps, captured French anti-Nazi partisans and civilians, and others, to help build the V-2, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians.

"We knew that we had created a new means of warfare and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision[emphasis in document] more than anything else," Von Braun said upon surrendering to American forces in May 1945. "We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured." [emphasis in document]

Well, as stunning an irony and as compelling an insight as it is... it's not exactly new, either. So rather than react in amazement to the sudden realization that the people who build and deploy disintegrating totem poles with radioactive "happy endings" may have to struggle with the ethics involved... rather than that, I turn to Tom Leher. Because Just Moral Outrage Theory goes down better with a bit of piano. 



And this way... I turn you on to Tom Lehrer. He also had some things to say about the ethics of deploying nuclear weapons that really should have been included in that Air Force Power Point presentation.



UPDATE: It appears that the military found the optics as bad as everyone else did.

The Air Force, in response to a report published by Truthout earlier this week, has pulled a Christian-themed training session that used a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer and numerous passages from the New and Old Testament to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons.

"It has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of the Air Force's Air Education and Training Command, about the Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training session. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society."

Smith said the ethics course has been in place for "20-plus years." He added that it will now be "given thorough scrutiny" and if "folks will be appointed to look at what we have and determine its utility and if they think its useful to continue having an ethics course they will develop a new course."

So perhaps they will now consider including Tom Lehrer in the revised materials? It was a contemporary critical review of that ethos. Somehow, that makes this whole thing a little more darkly humorous, as "20+ years" puts it in range of not just Lehrer, but other thoughtful critiques of the ethics of atomic war.

Indeed, the Air Force need not even concern themselves with creating new materials. It turns out an Independent Contractor has met the need.

The Quote Heard Round the World

 Gay marriage now just one vote shy of becoming law in New York despite Archbishop Dolan's objections

[NY] Sen. Roy McDonald (R-Saratoga) - in a dramatic reversal from his earlier opposition - became the second GOPer in as many days to give his blessing to same-sex nuptials, bringing Senate support to 31 votes.

"I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this."

and in the same story, here's the quote that probably pissed him off enough to take such a stand.

McDonald's change of heart came hours after Archbishop Timothy Dolan led a band of religious groups hustling to halt the momentum.

"The stampede is on," Dolan wrote in a blog post. "Our elected senators who have stood courageous in their refusal to capitulate on the state's presumption to redefine marriage are reporting unrelenting pressure to cave in."

Dolan equated the move to allow same-sex marriage to life in China or North Korea, where "government presumes daily to 'redefine' rights, relationships, values and natural law."

"Please, not here!," Dolan wrote. "We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought."

Yeah, that scores about 9.5 on the Orwell scale, doesn't it?
If "true freedom" means living the way people such as Dolan (or indeed, people such as myself) think we ought, perhaps we shoud worry less about the definition of marriage and more about the definition of Freedom. And Liberty. And the Pursuit of Happiness. 



Perhaps other citizens should also consider what other words are being "redefined."

Rule of Law, for example. It does not mean "the laws we write to rule you." 


"Freedom of Religion," for another. Freedom of religion means just that. It doesn't mean YOUR freedom to impose conditions upon me that make your religiously mandated sacrifices less painful. If you think you will go to hell for wanting a same-sex relationship - well, fine. But like living a Kosher life, it's harder for some than others and you don't get a vote on whether I get bacon with my eggs.

Frankly, it reveals to me a desperate confusion between "faith" and "conformity."

And if this threatens society as you know it - well, you know, I've lived in this society, I know it too.  Frankly, the worst parts of it are composed of the people that worry the most about that. In my humble opinion. And frankly, I'd like a little less comfort for people who would drag people I like more behind their pickups, if they thought they could get away with it.

More pointedly, if your current heterosexual marrage would be threatened by the possibility of same sex marriage - maybe you should just give up pretending. Take your "handball buddy" on a little trip to Canada after the least awkward no-fault divorce you can manage.  ProTip: A same sex marriage from Canada is legal in all fifty states. 

That's Just SO Takei!

BTW, the Gay Agenda is, and always has been, to join the United Federation of Planets to get access to all them hot Andorians.

Why I'm Not Voting for "Harper's Government."

The G20 summit caused chaos in Canada’s largest city and accomplished nothing other than a $1-billion photo-op for Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Monday during a campaign stop in Toronto

"The Harper Government," illustrated above, is not Conservative, save in the depressingly Neoconservative (Neoliberal) sense. And that is to say, not at all. Ignatieff is wrong; that billion dollars was well spent, if you understand what Harper's Government was trying to achieve; what he was trying to communicate to ordinary citizens and the world.

[N]ot only is the Conservative vision of an executive based, uniform and militaristic nation-state a coherent and substantive vision, but the Harper government has taken concrete and bold steps during a short minority government to make this vision standard operating practice.  It is time this was broadly acknowledged. The orthodoxy that the Harper government is a government that doesn’t do much be less superficially circulated. And a consideration of all that exists inside the otherwise thin description of the Harper government brand be undertaken.   Perhaps it is time to recognize that in current practice the Harper government is the government of Canada and the government of Canada is the Harper government.  If people do not like that equation then they should respond to the substance of this equation rather than just questioning the act of rebranding itself.

Related articles

• Canada Harper government toppled (bbc.co.uk)

The Newt Rules - Bill Maher can't make sense of them.

And Now A Brief Word From History

Context, you might ask?

It's not just old hippies who have acid flashbacks. Considering some of the reactions to the peaceful protests in the US against various authoritarian government agendas.


Discredit to the commentators from Freeperville (Welcome to Free Republic! America's exclusive site for God, Family, Country, Life & Liberty constitutional conservative activists! ) in a thread titled Wisconsin Teachers Lead Students in Anti-Walker Chants (thugs instruct children in the capitol)

To: Libloather

> Are they indoctrinating their pupils? You bet your @$$ that's exactly what they've been doing since the 1960s.
> Where are the decent people of Wisconsin?
Working to support these slugs.
Or cleaning and oiling their rifles.

8 posted on March-19-11 10:11:34 AM by Flatus I. Maximus (Everything you know about McCarthyism is wrong.)

---

To: bigbob

It’s that bad. Isn’t it?

9 posted on March-19-11 10:28:03 AM by GVnana

---

To: Libloather

It’s the way WI “repents” for having twice elected Joe McCarthy to the Senate.

10 posted on March-19-11 11:02:14 AM by Theodore R. (John Boehner just surrendered the only weapon with which he had to fight. What does OH see in him?)

---

To: sanjuanbob

"Where are the decent people of Wisconsin? Why no rallys?"Working and earning a living. It's long past time to go Galt.

So, basically, it's the old "Punch a Hippie for Jesus" crowd.

The relevance is underlined in midst of what we are told to be a deficit crisis that (obviousl) threatens world peace and thereby (somehow) justifies all kinds of "austerities" imposed upon those least able to afford them. But again, somehow, the same geopolitical forces that require choking off all arguably positive aid to people in need at the same time necessitates breathtakingly expensive and seemingly whimsical foreign adventures that will cost even more blood and treasure and will assuredly result in more dead, homeless, wounded and starving brown people far away.

You understand, it's not that I'm arguing for or against austerity or another war; I just find it hard to see how both arguments are compelling at the same time.


Reading the reactions against public protest of the naked abuse of authority really brings me back to the bad old days; growing up reading about the Kent State Massacre, the police riot during the Chicago Democratic Convention, the particularly vicious and mean-spirited fights about liberalizing divorce laws, carving out recognition that women have human rights, the offensive and idiotic opposition to and backlash against simple things like handicapped accessibly laws. And not so much the official lines - it's the watercooler aguments and letters to the editor that on occasion gave evidence of the sort of slack-jawed bigotry that empowered Nixon's "Southern Strategy."

But the problem with Billy-Bob ain't so much that he hates black folk. He hates fiercely and equitably, anyone who appears the slightest bit different, to the point where such folks routinely use the term "diversity" as a curse word, who are offended by the idea that they should be expected to tolerate differences in other people that do not affect them in the slightest. Government is expected to reflect his views; that it's wrong when it helps different people, and it's right when it punishes people for being different than him.

That's your modern social conservatism in a nutshell, save that it's not modern at all. I noted it as a child growing up in the late sixties and before then, H.L Mencken, C.S. Lewis and Mark Twain have all in their way shed light into the dark regions of the prudish and conventional soul. To cite H.L;

Mencken's Creed

     I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
     I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
     I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...
     I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
     I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...
     I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
     I believe in the reality of progress.
     I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

Of course, they were all freethinkers, even C.S. Lewis, in his way.

Who the hell could be against making it easier for people in wheelchairs going to church, holding a job or getting into public libraries? "Good Christians."

And every once in a while, you get an insight into what the people elected to office really think, when they believe they are in the company of  "Right Thinking People."

A New Hampshire lawmaker resigned Monday amid criticism for suggesting to a constituent that the state ship people with disabilities to Siberia.
Rep. Martin Harty, a 91-year-old first-term Republican in the state’s House of Representatives, drew fire after it became public that he told a constituent that “the world is too populated” with “too many defective people.”
“I wish we had a Siberia so we could ship them all off to freeze to death and die and clean up the population,” Harty continued, according to the constituent’s account. He specified that he was referring to “the mentally ill, the retarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions.”
When questioned about the comments last week, Harty was unapologetic and told the Concord Monitor that he was “just kidding.”
But on Monday Harty submitted his letter of resignation to state House Speaker William O’Brien.
“With all the slightly unfavorable publicity I’ve been getting the last few days, I’ll never be an effective lawmaker,” Harty wrote in the handwritten letter. “Sorry my big mouth caused this furor.”
Harty’s resignation will become official Tuesday when his letter of resignation is read on the House floor.

Yeah, I'm sure these actual Gulag victims would have laughed with him.

I think we can all be grateful that his legislative effectiveness has been impaired. But he's not resigning because he has shamefully realized the ideas expressed are immoral and odious - no, it's due to an impolitic indiscretion that might hamper "the good work."

Bachmann vs Reality

It should not be possible - ever - for an elective official - of ANY party - to be made to look THIS stupid in public without lying.



My question is NOT how stupid the voters are. How stupid are the people that let her EVER get traction in the first place?

Solving the Budget Crisis - Anywhere.

The first rule of budgeting is to look at your costs and priorities. It's as true for governments as it is for people. You look at the various things you spend time and money on and you decide if they actually bring the benefit you once thought.

This is one very dramatic example.



Watch the whole thing, and then realize the overwhelming truth. A positive budget shift of more than 2 billion dollars more or less immediately upon stopping the drug war. In California. Alone. 2 BILLION dollars.

I don't have to be an advocate of recreational drug use or medical marijuana to make that argument. I just have to point out that flushing two billion bucks down the crapper in return for no good outcome, much less anything like the intended outcomes (other than getting politicians elected) is really very stupid.

Let's look at a few other things going on in society. Currently, the majority of incomes are static or going down. This is due mostly to pressure from right wing groups (social and fiscal) who see the solution to everything to be cutting taxes and defunding "entitlement programs" like social services, medicare, etc.

On occasion, I do wonder if they ever think about consequences - at all. For some number of persons denied affordable health care for a loved one or a shot at a decent job will certainly cook methamphetamine to cover expenses. They will certainly consider stealing a BMW to pay the rent.  That is to say, you increase the statistical motivation for crime while at the same time decreasing the ability of  government to statistically decrease and prevent crime. Well-educated people, for instance, tend to have more lawful options, so are less likely to resort to violent crime. At the worst, they are less likely to blow their apartment building up because they couldn't read instructions for cooking  a drug.

Let us also remember that every usage of government comes at the price of something else it could be doing. This is a point Judge Grey makes above; that drug wars come at the price of investigating and prosecuting other crimes which, obviously, should take priority - basic things like murder, rape and robbery.

But it's also less obvious that many things government does are best done because they have diffuse, widespread benefits. Things like public health and welfare; universal, affordable heath care, vaccinations, sewage treatment, even direct welfare programs. These have many diffuse benefits that are obvious only in their absence; allowing ourselves to be ideologically blinded to the macro benefits because the "wrong people" will benefit on the micro level is breathtakingly stupid. Karl Smith illustrates this point.

If we want to build a model of what the government spends money on we would be best to start this way: ask people what social obligations do they believe “society” has. Look around for the cheapest – though not necessarily most efficient – programs that could credibly – though not necessarily effectively– address those obligations. Sum the cost of those programs. That will be government spending.

Contrary to Jonah Goldberg and others who see Canada and the United States as examples of two clashing ideologies, they are actually examples of two different ethic distributions.  The United States is not Canada because there is ethnic strife between Southern Blacks and Southern Whites. That strife reduces the sense of moral obligation on the part of the white majority and so reduces government spending.

I want to be very clear that I don’t say this to paint those against social spending as racists. From where I sit I am betting that most of the intellectuals lined up against expanding the welfare state are naively unaware that their support rests upon racial strife. Otherwise they would realize that as America integrates they are doomed. They are fighting as if they believe they have a chance of winning. Given the strong secular trend in racial harmony, they do not.

I point this out also to show why the major Republican strategy for limiting government was doomed from the start and why I am also not particularly worried about Americas fiscal future per se.

Now, it's becoming increasingly clear - to me at least - that people tend to discount the price they are willing to see other people pay to create the sort of society they would prefer to live in. I'd like you to try and look at this objectively - of course, I would be expecting rather a lot of you to do that. But try to look at the following and say, hm, supposing this actually was a sane idea that could arguably accomplish something positive, how much would it cost, and would it actually make more sense than, say, taking a third of that money and opening drug rehab beds, while blowing the rest on - oh, I dunno, something silly, like flood control?

Dick Morris calls Ron Paul ‘horrific’

If only Dick Morris would tell us how he really feels about libertarians.

During a radio interview with Peter Schiff, a former economic adviser to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, Dick Morris thought he’d be talking about his new book, and seemed annoyed when he found himself discussing trends within the Republican Party.

Schiff, who said he noticed that nearly a third of the people he met at CPAC came from the “Ron Paul/Gary Johnson wing” of the GOP, with the rest in the more traditional conservative camp of Mitt Romney, asked Morris how he thought this would play out in the presidential race.
“I strongly oppose Ron Paul,” Morris said. “I think he’s horrific. He wants us to end the War on Drugs. He wants us to end the War on Terror.”

“Do you think we’re winning the war on drugs?” Schiff interjected.
“No, because we’re not fighting it,” Morris replied.

“We’re not fighting it?” Schiff asked. “We don’t have enough laws against drugs?”

“No,” Morris replied. “We should drug test every high school student. We should drug test everybody that gets a student loan. Anybody that’s using drugs should not get a government student loan.”

Schiff argued that there was something vaguely socialist about the government giving out student loans in the first place, but Morris disagreed, and became increasingly annoyed.

“Peter, I’d like to talk about my book, which is ‘Revolt: How to Defeat Obama and Repeal his Socialist Programs,” Morris complained. “You know what, Peter? You talk to yourself for the next 15 minutes. That seems to be what you want to do.”

And with that, he hung up.

Morris’s feelings about Ron Paul are not a secret, as he called him “crazy” in a column in 2007. But the drug testing for all high school students is new, as far as I can tell. Morris did not respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: Morris emails to clarify: "Yes, I support drug testing for all high school students with those who fail getting rehab. I support drug testing for all recipients of student loans and those that fail should be tested again and, if they fail, the loan should be terminated."

Let me get this straight here. Socialism is bad, because it presumes that some central planner, some "bureaucrat" has inappropriate power over you, and of course, the obvious objection and argument, that such immense, overreaching structures with their arbitrary rules and institutional mentalities are woefully inefficient at doing anything cheaply or well... but collecting pee in cups along with SAT tests is somehow an exception to that rule? Derisive laughter is the only possible response!

Government is best done when it's focused on what people actually do need and how they actually will behave. It makes a terrible nanny. It does well when it does what it absent-mindedly can to make resources, information and spaces available so that people can most effectively help themselves. Oh, and the best reason for it to do that is because people will help themselves and those who they approve of, regardless of what any particular government might think of that proposition, or who they feel has the "God-Given right" to determine the fate of the majority of people.

Fox doesn't even TRY any more...

My takeway: If you are stupid enough or ignorant enough to think there could be palm trees in Madison Wisconsin, you might still be watching Fox News. Or at least, that's likely the calculus over at Faux, so why put any effort into that Journalism stuff? It's not like the core audience cares...

For the rest of humanity, let the mockery commence.

Oh, as for CNN, and other "Liberal Media," - maybe it might be time to spend more time on the real issues of the day, and less time on Charlie Sheen.

Defeat Stupidity Now

The epidemic of stupidity has placed western culture at grave risk; it threatens our health, our future, our survival as a species. So it's time to wake up and respect the intelligence. If you are not willing to do the heavy lifting required to form an informed and intelligent opinion, you don't get the right to have your stupidity respected. Conventional wisdom is under fire from every direction,  and it does not turn out to be particularly bulletproof.

Matt Blum writes in Wired

Bill Gates Says Anti-Vaccine Autism Groups “Kill Children” — And He’s Right

I get a ton of press releases every day in my inbox every day; most of them I just ignore, but yesterday I got one whose subject, in all-caps and bold, read:

OUTRAGED AUTISM GROUPS AND LEADERS TO ANNOUNCE 50,000-PARENT PROTEST IN NYC AGAINST BILLIONAIRE AND MICROSOFT CHAIRMAN BILL GATES AFTER BEING CALLED “CHILD KILLERS”

So I had to take a look, because I wanted to see what Gates had really said, and about whom. It turns out he didn’t actually use the phrase “child killers,” but he did say that anti-vaccine groups “kill children,” which does pretty much amount to the same thing. I can see why people would be outraged by that — I’m outraged, too, but not in the way the people who issued the press release would like me to be. Because I’m outraged that there most likely are 50,000 people who are willing to protest, when what Bill Gates said is absolutely, 100% correct.

I am constantly overwhelmed by the idiocy of so many people. In most cases, adults have every right to make bad choices, and we all make them now and then — but just making the occasional bad choice doesn’t make you an idiot. No, it’s idiotic to make a bad choice, and then when presented with ample evidence that you have made a bad choice do nothing to correct it. It is mindbogglingly idiotic to not only not correct that choice but to form groups with other idiots to try to convince yet more people to make the same bad choice. And it is dangerously idiotic when the bad choice in question kills children.

But there is a lot of dangerous idiocy out there. As infuriating and as stupid as this is, let us realize that this particular brand of idiocy is a manifestation of the same sort of flaming fucknuttery that has become epidemic in Western Society. And idiocy, when it becomes applied as social doctrine, as the basis for policy, kills. It kills people wholesale.

Now, ask yourself - could anyone who thinks and speaks this way possibly be a good parent, of any child?

Discredit: http://amplicate.com/hate/autism

Blum continues:

It’s unlikely that anyone who still believes that vaccines cause autism is going to be swayed by yet another article pointing out that no, actually they don’t. The original British autism study that prompted the whole anti-vaccine hysteria has been retracted and declared by the same journal that published it to be an “elaborate hoax.” In point of fact, there has never been a credible scientific study that shows that vaccines cause autism. Not one.

But really, this is but one symptom of the epidemic I've been blogging about since I started Graphictruth. There are some things that, if they have to be said at all, cannot be said "politely."

How about the idea that "Social Justice" is "a code word for "anti-americanism" - indeed, for "communism and nazism." At the same time. All at once. 

Well, anyone who can say that out loud fails to understand society, justice, the social forces that made people settle North America; it further reveals that they cannot possibly comprehend Communism, National Socialism (or fascism in general) and are no doubt rather confused about Christianity. 

Perhaps it's rude to observe that one would have to be paid very well indeed to be willing to say something that obviously foolish in public - but while rude, it's certainly true to observe that Glenn Beck is very well paid indeed.

Being an Asshole is not a religion, nor a faith, nor a doctrine. It's a lifestyle choice, a popular choice of those who are obsessed with the use and supposed misuse of the arses of others. One might say it's a tenant of Christian Fundamentalism. I would say that is a pun so vile that those who don't understand it deserve to have it explained to them. 

But more properly, a tenant from the Sermon on the Mount comes to mind: "Judge not, lest ye be judged also." 

I'm autistic, and I'm a blogger. I don't blog about autism, much; but I do have a certain perspective that comes from my neuro-linguistic bias, and in some lights, I think that the thing that is most feared about autistics is that we see things in a different way. The entire story about the little boy who said that the Emperor had no clothes ... well, that kid was likely autistic, by our current understanding of that set of traits. And I certainly see things the way that mythical kid did.

There is always some charismatic idiot who realizes that the fastest route to personal power is to gather a bunch of authoritarian followers and convince them that all their problems can be blamed on "those people" - people so morally deranged they will surely go to hell, and might even be so depraved as to vote for the other candidate. See above - or just turn on your television.


Now, if you delve into morality as stated by those for whom the morality of other people is a matter of great importance, you will find that purity and impurity; the politics of disgust are rather more pressing to them than a working, just, functional society of the sort advocated by Jesus.


Mind you, Jesus said all kinds of awkward things, and it got him nailed to a cross during his lifetime.You don't have to be trained by Jesuits to realize that the Crucifix at the front of the church is intended as much as an object lesson as an inspiration.

Everyone else had the social intelligence to not state the obvious truth that the Emperor was butt-naked - but in choosing to not do so, they were participating in a fraud upon the Court.

Of course, the moral of the story is that the Emperor was grateful. That would be the correct outcome - but of course, as you see from the lead example, it's not the usual one.

There's been much speculation as to whether Gates is on the Autistic spectrum himself. He certainly shows traits I associate with being Aspergers-typical autistic, though it's moments like this where I truly wonder aloud whether we can call it a disorder at all. Certainly it seems remarkable to think of someone like Bill Gates or Einstien as "High Functioning Autistics," as if they'd overcome an horrible condition in order to succeed. I rather think that if they considered it at all, they'd think it patronizing.

One of the criticisms of us is our "lack of social intelligence," and our placing of facts and our "inappropriate fixation on matters of justice" over the feelings of our peers.

Yeah, there's nothing so rude as being correct in public and not being willing to soothe the butthurt of the people who get busted pandering to the wishful thinking of the uninformed and thoughtless. Surely we must do something about that. And we certainly shouldn't expect leaders to exhibit actual leadership. No, they know their place and respect our willful stupidity. Hell, they should found their careers upon it!

Many Americans believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim who is also not a US citizen, and House Speaker John Boehner isn't about to correct them.

The Speaker told NBC's David Gregory Sunday that people have a right to their beliefs and it wasn't his job to tell them what to think.

Last week, 40 percent of Republicans on a Fox News panel insisted that Obama was a Muslim.
"As the Speaker of the House, as the leader, do you not think it's your responsibility to stand up to that kind of ignorance?" Gregory asked.

"David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think," Boehner replied. "Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people."

...he might as well have said, "I got elected by pandering to stupid people."

Now, that's often true enough - hell, and Clinton did it! So did JFK. It's true of every president of any party who ever got elected. The difference is, most of them thought of that as a regrettable necessity, not a fucking mandate!

He just said, out loud, that you'd have to be stupid to vote Republican - and he isn't about to disrespect the stupidity of the people who put him in power. Moreover, he's dumb enough to think that's a good thing to say out loud.

Even stupid people wish to be thought of as smart. So don't complement them for being stupid enough to vote for you. They might not actually thank you for that. Hell, they might grind their way slowly to the conclusion that it was pretty damn stupid to say that.

Having realized a leader is indeed, THAT stupid, you have to be very, very stupid indeed to think that it's ok to have anyone that stupid people in charge of heavy machinery, large amounts of money or weapons of war. Shall we turn to the news? oh, better yet, let's turn to the internet. What do we see? Any examples of things going as smoothly as we have every right to expect of those charged to cope with complex and difficult issues in a way to benefit the people as a whole?

A great many people who think of themselves as normal are choosing to believe any number of comfortable lies in the face of some increasingly urgent realities, and there will be hell to pay if humanity does not cash a reality check soon. Facts matter. If provable facts in evidence contradict what you would prefer to believe, tough. You are wrong. There's nothing respectable about being wrong, and no great virtue in being polite about it.

Wisconsin Cops call for a Fresh Deck and a New Deal

I wonder if Walker truly comprehends what sort of situation he could be in. The entire public service infrastructure wants to see him dangling from a light-pole, but will no doubt settle for a perp-walk and an orange jumpsuit.

And no doubt persons wishing to have a political future in Wisconsin are considering their options.

Meanwhile, folks... let me point out a few obvious things. If you have a mansion or a warehouse, it's probably not a good idea to threaten people who know how to burn it down and get away with it. Assuming, of course, that the arson investigators would notice something as subtle as Molotov cocktail fragments.

But wait, if the arson investigators are laid off... hm. What DOES that do to the insurance claim? Goodness me, I have no idea. At the very least, it complicates matters. Certainly, the current situation clearly has seized the attention of the police department. If I were on a public list of donors to the Walker campaign, I'd be trying to figure out how to distance myself - and my first call would be to my tax accountant!

Consider the math. Non-violent crimes against those donors will have a priority somewhere below jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk.


And all those people who got the tax breaks, for which all this nonsense is intended to fund? Hm... well, if all these public sector workers are locked out - every project that legally requires a state sign-off is on hold. No building permits. No environmental impact statements reviewed. No re-certifications of meat packing or cheese making. Short-staffed or un-staffed, all they could possibly do is shut your operation down, to ensure public health and safety.

And that, of course, is simply the direct, obvious and legal consequences. People laid off in the Department of Public works - won't stop knowing how to use a backhoe. And if broad ditches should appear cutting off non-tax-paying businesses from public roads, well, that would be a firing offense, as well as iillegal. If you had a job, of course, and if anyone was particularly interested in catching you.

...I could go on.

Former Governer Walker - you see, I'm a futurist, stating an obvious future... assholes who say, "I'm the big dog, and you gotta do what I say, 'cause whatcha gonna do about it?" had best stop well short of putting people in a position where being in jail means better meals and medical care than being an obedient serf.
Particularly if the police ain't interested in properly investigating crimes committed by people other than you.

You see, moments like this illustrate why civility and good attention for the sensibilities and interests of your political opponents are vital. Sabotage proper and fair procedure and people will revert to older, but reliable means of ensuring good and effective government.

Tar, feathers and a split rail are a proven means of dispensing with sociopaths. The rule of law is preferable, of course, and that is why it's a traditional Conservative value to colour within the lines.

If this is not terrorism, the word has lost it's meaning.

Let's just come out and say it:

The "War On Terror is not." Because if it actually were, social conservatives, talibancials and right-wing freakout artists who gin up this sort of violence would be IN Gitmo, worksopping the question as to whether or not waterboarding is, in fact, torture.

So, "Terrorism" is in fact anything that threatens the continued dominance of the talibancial, theocratic right wing and their desire to run everyinting for the benefit of the war and oil lobby.

By the way, I have nothing against waging war or drilling for oil. I just want responsible and competant people doing both. And of course, the War On Terror means that if you queation the competaince, intelligence or motives of either group.. welcome to the No Fly List, you International Terrorist Conspiritor, you.

A crappy metaphor, indeed.

In some ways, this is a belated New Year's resolution, and it's also a new decade's resolution.

I'm not going to be bothering to comment on blatant idiocies. I'm going to trust that you are smart enough to see blatant idiocy when you see it. But you should not assume that there's a "side" or an "ideology" that is somehow immune to such shrill, self-righteous public stupidity. The "Left" is just as capable of fucking up as is the "Right," and as often as not, for the very best of intentions.

As human beings, we tend to make assumptions about reality that are more abut what we want to believe than what actually is. Reality is complicated and messy; we'd prefer it to be simplified. People are complex and multifaceted, we'd prefer that the vast majority could be summed up and dismissed in one paragraph or less - and not for reasons that even speak terribly ill of us as humans.

We just don't have the time or the ability to give much of a damn about people outside of our immediate lives. As a matter of pure self defense and as a necessary step towards maintaining sanity, we latch upon the superficial as a way of limiting the things we must care about.

If you are sane and decent and ethical, that's probably about as much as anyone has a right to ask of you.

We rely on social mechanisms to tell us about things we really do feel the need to care about and if need be, do something about those things, if enough people agree on what is to be done. That is to say, we rely on journalism and government to inform us about matters that concern us and government to deal with things we collectively decide to be collective responsibilities - like, say, our various national defenses, our various approaches to heath care, food safety, fire protection and the education of the next generation.

I think that people capable of thinking for themselves have abandoned mainstream journalism in favor of social media and I'm coming to expect that watching what passes for government govern is making people wonder if there might possibly be an app for that as well.

The nasty truism that people get the government (and journalism) they deserve still has bite; those who used to write for an informed audience have gotten tired of putting up with the shrill plaints of those unwilling to deal with unpalatable realities, or have been fired by a management that prefers a consistent message to awkward facts.

So it's becoming difficult to find an informed opinion on an internet filled with opinion and little else.

I'm as unwilling to waste my time giving a "fair hearing" to a doctrinaire Marxist as I am to the equally irrelevant opinions of Conservative Christians who expect me to give their creationist contrivances and moralistic assertions the respect they think they believe they merit. Feeling the need to argue with stupid people is even more of a vice than being stupid; you have to realize it's pointless, so it's merely another way of being an asshole in public and feeling good about yourself in the morning.

Take the so called "new athiests." Many of the new athiests can be really offensive assholes. Which is not to say that they are wrong about their perceptions of Christian culture. Or Islamic culture. I do happen to think that both cultures would offend and appall Christ and Mohamed, and their snide critiques are often wickedly entertaining.

Nonetheless, I can observe the same things without being an offensive jerk, comparing God to an "invisible pink unicorn" or the tooth fairy, and I also know that stealing Linus's security does not ever improve Linus. If you dismiss religion as a "crutch" - well, possibly it is. But what does that say about you when you try to kick someone's crutches out from under them?

Ironcially; many of the complaints made by atheists against the behavior of offensive Christians are things that Christ Himself complained of. So perhaps this isn't about who is right, but rather about who is pissing into the harder wind. I believe I shall abstain.

Athiests - and by this, I mean "social athiests," because all I'm commenting on is herd behavior, are no different than anyone else. They want the people that annoy them to go away. Well, sadly, they won't. Now athiests may legitimately say they are asserting the right to stay and be themselves. To that extent, I applaud them, along with evangelicals, Wiccans, flat-taxers, small-government idiologues, creationists and anti-masturbation activists.  Please, live by your beliefs and put your ideas in the marketplace.

Just don't confuse that right with the right to demand that I believe what you have to say or respect your world view as being just as good as my own, nor complain to me when the results of living your beliefs aren't exactly as was advertised in the brochure.


That's a bridge too far, and that's always how those who crave simplicity manage to complicate matters.

I dislike, for instance, the cultures that exist in the so called "Red States," the very authoritarian, structured, culture-bound, moralistic and conventional cultures, which of course exist everywhere. But they exist for a reason. That reason is that a LOT of people feel much more comforatable there than they would here. Such people are part of the fabric of humanity, it seems, and they will always confuse their own needs with some greater social or moral imperative. But then, so do you, and from time to time... it may happen that I do as well.

I reluctantly admit that my own reaction is as much about my own tribalism and essential nature as theirs. So I live where I'm not bothered by them, I don't go to places they frequent and don't seek to disturb their lives - unless, of course, they ask me very nicely and compensate me for my trouble. 

But poltical culture has descended to arguing who has the right to impose what set of inconveniences and insults upon whom, rather than coming to some useful agreement on what needs to be done to get everyone through the winter, I'm done with political writing. Because that's the only point to the exercise.

Every morning I read the news, and yet I don't write about it. It's stupid and tiresome and frankly, even the very best commentary is mired in a partisan world view enslaved to such short-term news and economic cycles that it has no real value to a person wanting to live a thoughtful and useful life.

I'm committed to telling the truth, and understanding and communicating realty as best as I can, with the perceptions and the experiences I have. Every once in a while, I must therefore revisit my own working assumptions, test my own ideas against reality and see if what I'm doing is actually working. I'm in the midst of that process right now, and I'm still unsure as to whether I will continue blogging, and if so, about what.

But there are a few things I am sure of.

I'm not in the least "objective" in the mythical and unapproachable sense that classically "liberal" journalists strive for, nor am I willing to pretend that my bias is "common sense" or a "fair and balanced" view. And I'm afraid that is incompatible with finding a true home in any particular ideological, political or doctrinal camp. I'm not condemning here. Advocacy journalism, which is what MSNBC does badly, Fox does even worse and Mother Jones does fairly well is perfectly fine, as long as it is not confused with objective reporting.

Remember, in neither form is it permissible to actually lie. Not because lying is, like, wrong and stuff. No. It's because once I know a source is willing to lie to me - I stop listening. I certainly don't pay money to have my intelligence insulted. The purpose of the one is to persuade me using verifiable facts. The other is to provide facts in detail and context and let me make up my own mind about what it means and what I should do about it. I don't expect perfection - but increasingly, I'm finding I'm less informed about the world by partaking in the news than I was before I sought to relieve my ignorance.

Objective journalists aren't (they try nobly and fail regrettably) while advocacy journalists strive for a cause and a vision, in the hope and belief that they are correct... and the better grades of them will admit that is not nearly as often true as they would prefer. In BOTH cases, they have to be reliably more useful to me as a consumer of information than smacking myself in the face with a board. And I have no real social need to be "well informed" in the ways that would make me popular at cocktail parties.

At heart, I'm a lighthouse keeper. I value solitude and need a very small social circle indeed. It's nice to know that I've swayed a person this way or that - but I don't need to add them to my circle of followers, nor is it important to me that a person who is my friend agree with me in every respect.

That is more than just upbringing and experience - that's my nature, which in many ways predetermined the range of experiences I'd seek out and the effects any parenting could possibly have. It's neither a disability nor a blessing - it's merely what I am. It influences what I can do, and what things I should concentrate on.

This is true for you as well, no doubt in completely different ways. The only way I differ is that the way I am is a bit uncommon, so there are no conventional excuses for my reflexive behaviors. There is no church of St. Bob, The Autistic. I don't get to pretend there are really good reasons for choosing to behave and react as I do. I think, in a strange way, I'm rather lucky in that respect.

None of us acorns fall far from the tree of our essential being, regardless of how normal we may appear to others. How we choose to go about expressing our behavior, and whether we love or loathe ourselves for being what we cannot help but be in some way DOES matter. What matters even more is what harm to others do we do along the way and if the good we do outweighs the bad.

I take a ruthlessly practical view of harm. Actual harm to real people in concrete, measurable ways is more significant than theoretical harms, like, say, "maintaining our way of life", "protecting our family values", "defending the faith against those who would defame it" or "making the world safe for democracy."

Harming someone right now in the name of staving off a supposed future "harm" of that nature is simply wrong. That is about the most simple truth that I know, and really the only important one.

The priest that tells you that their god demands a life to permit the crops to grow should be the very LAST sacrifice to that god. Find another god, or do without. Any god worth following should be a better person than you are. That's a standard that applies to church and elected officials, I might add.


For there is no great movement, no unified religion, nor any great singular social vision that can work save by treating large numbers of people as no more than grit in their perfect gears. The "Left" and the "Right" have taken turns proving this, and if those lessons are cited selectively, it should be observed that the people who lead such movements tend to end up with much fatter bank accounts than they could otherwise aspire to, so they tend to rely on the insights that are favorable to them.

So let me council a gentle skepticism toward those offering simple answers to complicated questions, like Hard Money or One World Government.


You may note that nations and cultures rise and fall - but humanity chugs along. The Bible, The Koran, the Prose Eddas, the very oldest and most treasured writings - there is not one of them that you will not recognize yourself in. You will boo the villian, you will cheer for the hero; you will be moved as people who first heard the story were moved. People, in other words, are people and human nature wins, every single time, despite all efforts to stamp it out and make us into perfect angels or demons.

All civilization, all political and social organizations, every stupid committee, every tea party, every single government in every nation has but one essential task; to permit as many people as possible to live and work together in close enough proximity, as unbothered as possible so that they may act in various ways to the diffuse and collective benefit of all. That's it.

A capable government is very much like an invisible stage hand - it makes sure that the things that are needed appear as if by magic; it does not crave more power than it needs to do what the time and circumstances require and - most essentially - while it realizes that a little mythology and wishful thinking is important - believing it is extraordinarily dangerous.

Liberals pretend that everyone is, or would be, very altruistic - and if they are not, it's due to bad company while being brought up by toothless alcoholics in trailer parks.

That's as mindless a prejudice as those against liberals, wingers will say, are inherently immoral, hopelessly addicted to pot-smoking and fornication and of course, are all jobless lusers, of no possible consequence or importance.

Hm. Well, if the intelligentsia of both sides are presumably living in the basements of their parents, and the only significant distinction is a choice between Bud and Budweiser... why listen to either? You see, my friends; if that is who you see your most important opponent to be - well, that's exactly the significance of what YOU stand for.


Sadly, the political leadership of the US and, increasingly, the world, is convinced that it needs only appeal to THAT sort of person. It presumes that nobody is any better than that, nor smarter than that - and governments that act that way attract talent of that quality. Such talent isn't very talented, nor do they well serve the needs of the majority.


When people have the ability to ignore such buffoons, they do, and when they must interact with them, mostly they will get the better of them. If they must work around them, they will find it easy, if they must corrupt them to get things done, they will, and it won't be all that expensive. Of course, nobody will have a decent or useful government, but you don't miss what you have never known.



Anyway, I'm simply not the sort to take this to the next step - which should be fairly obvious, along the lines of taking matches away from small children and saying that lawn darts are no more toys than are javelins and blowpipes.But I'll tell you what it is.

Do you know the most significant legacy of every single notable government? Ever?

Waste management! A govenrment is about managing all the crap that accumalates when enough people gather together for a civilization to occur. The LITERAL crap comes first. It's no more romantic and no less essential than that.

Latrines. Roads. The regulation of the marketplace and the policing of highways so that people will come and trade. Thankless, largely routine, not much fun and certainly at all heroic on a good day, so we do tend to glitz it up a bit with thrones and parades and Hail to the Chief.

But at the end of the day, the stuff that matters is the stuff that doesn't happen, not the stuff that historians and the media feast upon.

Today, there were no pandemic plagues.

Today, we did not have an atomic war.

Today, the San-Fransisco Bay Bridge did not collapse.

Today, although many fires started, most of them were put out, and it's unlikely that a city anywhere burned to the ground.


Today, in most places in the world, Cholera is something you simply don't have to think about. Or measles or smallpox, or polio. To the extent that this is true, it is true due to the recognition that eliminating these diseases is an inherent good and a collective benefit. It was, in other words, an act of good government.

Today, in at least most of the western world, you can buy food and medicine that you you can be nearly sure contains what it should and is not immediately poisonous; moreover, if you are minded to be more careful than that, you can inform your decisions with libraries and the Internet.

All of these important collective needs are met by that indispensable thing - government. Some do it better than others. But if you have serious concerns about your local government's capability, it's wisdom and foresight - perhaps you should stop and realize that no enterprise, public or private can possibly be any better than the people who are doing the work.

See that pile of crap? It won't shovel itself.

The Greatest Depression

I've been taking some time off from blogging because I was starting to feel like I was channeling H.L. Mencken. But I do not have a great-enough capacity for booze and cynicism, so I am but a pale imitation.

One of my problems as a writer - indeed, one of my great problems in life has always been that I have difficulty saying things I don't believe with a straight face, and the gambit of not saying much at all, while effective socially, isn't a winning formula for a deadline warrior.


I look around myself, and see great tensions and forces and people of all political stripes trying to make sense of it all in terms they are comfortable with. If there is a parallel to be had at all, they most remind me of the generals of WWI, who bravely sent their forces to die in a muddy stalemate because they could not or would not adapt to the new realities of warfare imposed by the airplane and the machine-gun.


In aid of coming to some sort of personal understanding of our times and my place in them, I've just read "Original Blessing" - the Matthew Fox classic of theology - which came recommended to me by an Anglican student of theology, and I give significant weight to the fact that it got Fox ousted from the ranks of Catholicism by Ratzi himself. It was written in the 80s and to me says nothing very controversial at all.

On the other hand, if there is a name for what I am, in terms of faith, it would be a Christian Mystic. As I'm anti-authoritarian in matters of faith and politics alike, well, I understand why I found myself rather bored by arguments that seemed obvious, buttressed by examples I thought spoke rather better for themselves in full context. I suppose it says rather a lot that one needs to be a theologian to say such things out loud and be taken seriously and rather more that one could be ejected from the church for fairly much saying "Me Too" to the essential insights of Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart and Jesus - but then, I've always figured the red letters were pretty clear. I've never really sought out any official endorsement of the obvious, any more than I would need a climatologist to tell me that the sky is blue and clouds are white.

I learned two things of importance from this book:  First, that the biblical word that is translated as "faith" would perhaps be as well translated as "trust" - and that for the sake of getting published, it's not what you know ... it's Who you know.

Seriously, it's the most awful book to read - but read it you should. Consider it a penance.

And then there was a small, obscure history, "Red Lights on the Prairies," a yellowing paperback I found in a church thrift-store basement written about the history of prostitution in the Canadian West.

Oddly, both books speak a great deal of the distinction between ethical behavior and the imposition of arbitrary moral order - and how difficult it is to make everyday practical distinctions between the two, much less foresee the social consequences of mistaking moralism for morality. There are certain things about human behavior that are givens, and whatever you make of them, for good or for ill, they will  happen regardless of how loudly you yell or how hard you hit.

If you ever want to understand why "harm reduction" is good public policy, read this book. When young, horny, physically active men outnumber women three to one - an outlet will be found. Best be sure it's not through your own sense of propriety.

People don't stop doing what they do just because you tell them it's wrong and will hurt them if they don't obey you. They just lie about it, while siezing upon the greater profit margins enjoyed by criminals and the lower standards accepted by those resigned to having to resort to criminal sources. Moralism, it illustrates, is a pretty poor excuse for not doing the right thing.

Those who yammer on about the need for a new moral order in politics while behaving in ways that demonstrate they couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong if it stepped on their face are... well, they are nothing new in the world. That's the Greatly Depressing thing.

For a bit more context about why war cheerleaders are so eager to demonize efforts to generalize lessons from Nuremberg, see this passage from Nuremberg Diary by G.M. Gilbert, the American prison psychologist at Nuremberg who wrote the following as part of his account of an interview he did (one of many) with Hermann Goering  on April 18, 1946, in Goering's cell (pp. 278-79):

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don’t want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare war."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.  It works the same in any country."

There is always some charismatic idiot who realizes that the fastest route to personal power is to gather a bunch of authoritarian followers and convince them that all their problems can be blamed on "those people" - people so morally deranged they will surely go to hell, and might even be so depraved as to vote for the other candidate. See above - or just turn on your television.

Now, if you delve into morality as stated by those for whom the morality of other people is a matter of great imporance, you will find that purity and impurity; the politics of disgust are rather more pressing to them than a working, just, functional society of the sort advocated by Jesus.

Mind you, Jesus said all kinds of awkward things, and it got him nailed to a cross during his lifetime.You don't have to be trained by Jesuits to realize that the Crucifix at the front of the church is intended as much as an object lesson as an inspiration.


The lesson of history is that rounding up those people really does little to address structural inequities or the root causes of ... well, anything. It does, however, nicely address the cash-flow issues and power needs of people who make the cattle cars and the tools to blow shit up, and employs many in the process of rebuilding after the blowing up is done and the bodies are buried. So, what are a few niggers, spics, paddies, kikes, gypsies, kulaks, pinkos, picts, scotti, imperialists, faggots or towel-heads whining about, in the face of such great social good and moral order? Someone has to be in control, or all will be chaos!

That's not just sacasm - it's an important thing to realize; that the need to control others comes as much from fear as from greed. Indeed, I think that the "lesser," or at least more socially acceptable sins of lust and greed are more agreeable excuses for the need to have power over others. Much of the time, for many people, it seems to be much more a visceral, incohate fear of what would happen if "those" people were allowed to "do their own thing."  


The great problem of times such as these (and if you look back, it always seems that to some degree, it always is a time like this) - the people who know enough to know they aren't fully competent for the task stand back - leaving a path to apparent greatness yawning for some fearful and witless incompetent who's quite sure they know how to fix a complicated and delicate situation with some combination of brute force and ignorance.

And in a sense, it does work. It generally results in a transformation - because the idiot succeeds in breaking things badly enough that there can be no serious argument over the need for a new system. Take Mao's Cultural Revolution. In a bass-ackwards sort of way, it actually did work. Or, more than likely, it worked out as it had to work out, quite aside from the marching and waving and credit-taking. Shit rolled downhill, as it tends to do, and Mao was clever enough to get behind it and cry out, "See, this is what I've done!"

But then, I'm a cynical man. And quite frankly, that's rather more than most people do, for good or for ill. An honest record of the man and his times will record that there was rather a lot of each, and when possible, he did bias toward the good he understood, and avoided the bad things that he could foresee. Like all great leaders, he benefited from the loyal efforts of those who were rather better than he honestly deserved for the pay he offered.

But that is not the role of one such as myself, and I think I sleep better for it.

I've long since decided that I am unlikely to be able to affect much change from within. Consider the object lesson of Obama. If he ever was sincere about effecting the sorts of change needed to avoid some form of transformative catastrophe by working from within - he's clearly found out why that almost never happens.

An era is ending, and it will end. It has nothing whatsoever to do with nations, or politics or faith. It has to do with change. Not change brought to washington, or change that can be forestalled by an election for a few years - we are dealing with changes in energy generation, changes in trade, changes in weather, changes in economic realities, changes in the importance of various core goods and services and almost none of this can be changed from Washington, Paris, Bejing or the United Nations.

We can, at best, adapt with some grace, perhaps a bit better than did the Neanderthals, hopefully with more grace than the Church did, faced with the Enlightenment.

But I wouldn't bet against stupidity.

Obama  is strapped into a socio-political space shuttle, along with everyone else. Now, it will cease to be airborne one way or another, and rather soon. The philosophy of piloting ain't going to make a hell of a lot of difference, but competence will. And that goes to some practical understanding of why things fall, and how you can affect where they land.

Ethics - and most of life, if you want to live through as much of it as possible - deals with an appreciation of cause and effect in human terms. In terms of the current situation in world affairs, instead of looking to Glenn Beck for advice - look to the people that Glenn Beck advises. Then if you live in an area where such people form a majority and control your government, sell them your basement as a food, weapons and gold cache location and hie thee hence, for when the levees break, they will be arguing as to who's fault it was, or whether the rescue effort should concentrate on "good" or "bad" people rather than getting on with the job at hand.

It's not that emergency preparedness is a bad idea. But when it comes at the expense of preventing the disaster in the first place, well now. Then I have a problem. You prepare for unforeseeable emergencies. The foreseeable ones, those you fix, or you avoid.

You can predict a great deal about how people will deal with a large crisis by seeing how they react to a small one.

Those who tend to assign blame, deny factual information that contradicts their world-views; those who indulge in obvious hypocracy, those who cannot manage to get through an entire paragraph without tripping over their own cognitive dissonance - well, it doesn't matter what "philosophy of governance" or religious faith they claim to share with you, because even if they understand it as well as it may appear, they couldn't apply it in any useful way when the bolts come loose.

You see, at the end of the day, the whole point of the exercise is ensuring that life goes on, and if your way of securing the future for you and yours depends on denying a future to them and theirs, sooner or later there will be a reconing and the outcome will come down to raw numbers.

If less than 20 percent of the people control more than 80 percent of the wealth - you don't need a spreadsheet to see where this could lead. 

Well, in point of fact, that wealth WILL be redistributed. Regardless of what I think of it or what you believe, regardless of any question of justice or fairness, that's simply going to happen, by one means or another.

There's too much water and not enough dam.

Whether or not social justice occurs will likely be a question of local circumstance, dependant on many factors. But for most people in most parts of the world, the obvious question is this - is there any reason why I should care if those people live or die, if I should pay one more penny to fuel their yaughts?

And in point of fact, in order for that amount of wealth to stay that concentrated; a great deal of people need to shrug and not begrudge the few grains it takes from their ricebowl.