Will We Destroy Food - The Salmon?

This post has been moved to the Ecocosmology blog.

We Non-Things Live Here Too

A couple set their camera to take a photo of them alone beside the lake.

A friendly local came by to join in and seemed to say "hey don't forget us, we live here on this planet too".

Scientists have discovered an automatic analysis system within the human brain that automatically does an analysis to determine if an object is animate or inanimate, that is, alive or not alive.

Those scientists still do not know the reasons this happens:

For unknown reasons, the human brain distinctly separates the handling of images of living things from images of non-living things, processing each image type in a different area of the brain. For years, many scientists have assumed the brain segregated visual information in this manner to optimize processing the images themselves, but new research shows that even in people who have been blind since birth the brain still separates the concepts of living and non-living objects.

(Science Daily). The lesson seems to be that a mysterious natural ability teaches the important distinction we should keep in mind.

Tenet Four of Ecocosmology would have us give special treatment to all living species so as to learn from them so we can continue the existence of the human species indefinitely.

There are quirky, funny, and amazing abilities in the species around us, including activities we can't even come close to doing.

Our efforts toward co-existing with our environment will certainly be rewarded and will be worth more in the long run than quickie and momentary "profits".

The Graphs Of The Age Of Plunder

I used this graph in a recent post down stream in the series showing that the robber baron age ended by legalizing certain forms of financial robbery, and how foreclosures and job losses went up as the plunder factor went up.

Legalization ended the robber baron age because the laws which made their actions robbery vanished, at which time the age of plunder began.

This age of plunder will be with us until the Crawford jail is enlarged and filled.

Paul Krugman writes a piece where he cites to a graph that shows a full stop of the transfer from the wealthy to the middle class, and shows that decline being replaced by a steep rise in the transfer of wealth back to the wealthy.

That reversal began at about the time the Bush II presidency manifested itself upon the world.

Isn't that a coincidence?

Bush II surge of 1% share of income

Then the breaking of the previous record in the disparity of income sharing occurred early in the Iraq war, and not long after the infamous "mission accomplished" propaganda became fully propagated or distributed by the MSM.

The end of this age of the robber barons and the start of the age of the plunder begins at the time of the beginning of the wars, thus, the American people began to be plundered and their treasures began to transfer to the warsters and banksters when Bush II felt his infamous oats and became The Decider.

What astounds us who detect this in minutes or hours, by reading details in the documents available on the internet, is that so many people are surprised at this plunder and have no real clue about its reality.

This age of plunder is so very obvious and clear that even no high school student would fail to detect it, if they were interested.

I will add in closing that the MSM, like high school students, seems to have better things to do than detect the plunder of the American people by the plunder barons.

Isn't that a coincidence?

The next post in this series is here.

The Crawford Birmingham Jail

There are rumors that a defendant or two in Texas survive their trials and actually make it to jail.

There was a time in Texas history when this was less likely to happen:

A fight occurred in the District Court room last night which came near resulting fatally. The trial of young Stephens, charged with the murder of Dr. Wallace, at Mansfield, this county, had just been opened, the entire day having been spent in impaneling a jury.

The Attorneys were tired and petulant. Henry Furman, the leading counsel for the defense, became embroiled in a controversy with County Attorney Bowlin, and the two men finally came to blows. Every one expected to see bloodshed. The court room was quickly emptied. Both men were undoubtedly armed each waiting for the other to draw.

In the midst of this confusion Judge Becman leaped from the bench into the arena. As he did so Lawyer Weare, who is associated with Bowlin in the prosecution, excitedly struck the Judge a very severe blow under the ear. The Judge was dazed for an instant, but, being a powerful man, instantly recovered his balance and let fall a sledge-hammer blow that prostrated Lawyer Weare.

Turning his attention to the principal combatants, who by this time had clinched and were committing mayhem upon one another's ears and cheeks, the Judge commanded the jury to arise and quell the riot; at the same time he seized one of the combatants and two jurymen took hold of the other, thus separating them.

Furman and Bowlin were fined $50 each for contempt, after which the court immediately adjourned as all the combatants were bleeding profusely. The court did not fine Lawyer Weare. It is feared the feeling engendered will yet result in a tragedy.

(NY Times). The Crawford jail, unlike the Birmingham jail, could only handle the few, the proud, the good ole boyz.

The Birmingham jail, which housed people seeking rights about which children today would say "duh" (if you asked them if blacks and whites can use the same bathroom), is a much larger facility.

The Birmingham jail was full of those who thought "white only" and "black only" drinking fountains was "duh".

The Crawford jail, small as it is, will probably never seen any inmates who lied to the U.S. public, killed hundreds of thousands, tortured, ruined the DOJ, and finally ruined the economy.

That is because it is the land of the free and home of the brave, and because somebody forgot to consider home of the just in that mantra.

Have you come a long way baby, or are you still in Crawford Birmingham jail?

One Mystery After Another At Saturn

The school bus sized Cassini spacecraft has photographed another strange phenomenon.

An object was photographed travelling through the "F" ring of the planet Saturn. Is it a small satellite in a strange orbit, a stray asteroid, or the Enterprise going through a time warp heading back to Earth?

As you can see, the object made the ring very bright behind it, and cast a shadow on rings closer to the camera.

It seems that there are constantly new discoveries around Saturn, from satellites orbiting "the wrong way" (e.g. Norse Group), to the great hexagon, to Enceladus, which is building rings around the planet with water from its own geysers.

Coldest July or Warmest July?

This post has been moved to the Ecocosmology blog.

GOP Demands The Right To Be Rude

The GOP is investing millions of dollars into the right, yes the right to be rude.

At town hall meetings of democrats around the country, where people are attempting to explain or to find out the current text and meaning of health care reform bills, the GOP is asserting that they have a right to be rude.

They think America is composed of the right to take firearms to public gatherings and yell loud and disrupt the public discourse by being rude, chanting some scripted mantra published by right wing opinion makers.

That is the way they ran the government when they were in power and we all know where that got us.

The world sees us as uncouth, barbaric cowboys while endless stupid wars rage, and endless recessions and depressions gut "the American dream".

The GOP solution is to be rude, stay rude, and be proud of it.

Bart Simpson Does Homeland Security

On today's Morning Joe, MSNBC, Joe Scarborough asked some major questions, then took the conclusions in the wrong direction.

But at least he did ask the questions the MSM is usually too afraid or too ignorant to ask, even though they are obvious questions.

Joe asked "why does the TSA (body cavity searchers at airports) make such a big deal of mistrusting Americans, but at the same time, allow small aircraft which can carry large quantities of explosives, to fly anywhere up and down the Hudson River into New York City without any control?" (paraphrased)

What prompted that very good question in the first place was the helicopter / aircraft collision that killed 9 people this week in New York as the parts of the aircraft fell into the Hudson River.

The basic law of the air there, or the law of the jungle, is that no flight plans have to be filed, everyone is on their own, in short you just look out for other aircraft and try to miss them.

There isn't even a yellow strip down the middle of the road or any signs like there are on highways. And when it is foggy? Never mind.

Anyway, Joe was wondering why there is such a fuss to body search American citizens who are flying from one U.S. city to another, when anyone could rent a small plane and fill it with WMD and fly into New York without even filing a flight plan, being searched, or even asked for a passport?

It is a good question that has been asked here on this blog, but the answer is one not likely to be taken up: there is no substantial threat or we would have already been toast.

And when our own health care system kills about 450,000 of us each year, maims a million more, and it is slated to bankrupt the nation in the not-too-distant future, why would a terrorist bother?

Terrorists could do more damage by trying to keep the health care system as it is, by encouraging more people to be harmed by it by increasing those insured without improving it, encouraging the eating of fat food, the smoking of cigarettes, taking our mind off the fact our energy is going to go away, and the continued pollution of our air and water.

They could just keep those lobbyists busy and forget the drama queen theatrics the bushie neoCons were all hyped up over all those years.

Morning Joe concluded that we need more Homeland Security, since we really don't have any, but went the wrong direction as his brethren conservatives did when they created the huge bureaucracy to bring pork to the porkers.

No, we need Homeland Sanity in place of the current Homeland Dementia infecting the public debate and public cognition.

Accountability Is a Four Letter Word

As you know, if you read this blog often, accountability to this administration thus far has been a four letter word "nope", not gonna do it, wouldn't be prudent.

My ballot had Obama on it because I voted to reject the Bush II ideology, and Obama seemed to do so to during the election.

Since then, he has embraced much of the things the voters rejected, and thus he is being rejected by those who voted for him in at least that degree, even as we continue to reject Bush II policies as set forth by neoCon conservatives and the Obama Administration.

A mellow and fair minded law professor who appears on the nightly news shows frequently is fed up with the fascist tendencies of this Department of Justice and the broader administration as I am, and takes off the kid gloves.

Accountability is an integral part of government ethics and without it a government is unethical.

Remaining Forest Has 350 "New" Species

This post was moved to the Ecocosmology Blog.

We Don't Need No Stinking "Advanced"

I thought they had put the quietus on all this advanced stuff, but no, mister average and below is not good enough, big dog is unhappy, we must do things truck drivers cannot do?

This is like deep thoughts man, and those were banned by the cornservatives led by Bush II the grate.

This just in:

The report, released Friday, recommended that the space agency revive the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), which was shuttered in 2007, or replace it with a similar innovation-focused entity in order to "seek out far-reaching, advanced concepts with the potential of significant benefit" to NASA's charter and future missions.

(Space). So this is new, this is like revolutionary dude, this is so not status quo, and we gotta allow advanced now?

Will they kill our kids now?

Iran Dances To North Korea's Drums

Neocon warmongers in the U.S. and Israel will be glad to know that there are news reports that Iran has executed lawyers representing those who protested the fraudulent elections there a short while back.

Progressives who were fooled by the Iranian propaganda about all this will dig deeper into their own denial, and think warm and fuzzy thoughts about Iran's despots who seem to want to follow the model of North Korea.

Those who see this in real time will realize that it is a setback for the good future the sane people of that region, like sane people everywhere, hope for.

The governments of Iran and Israel are like the past U.S. regime, hard liner warmongers, and they are bound and determined to bring destruction, death, and that whole garbage can of inhumane events to fruition.

Thankfully the U.S. warmongers were voted out in substantial part, and so cooler heads will prevail here so that we do not start a war with Iran.

What remains to be seen, however, is whether cooler heads here can influence the war mongers in Iran and Israel to start taking their medications again.

UPDATE: In a possible twist in the story, the government is blaming the jailer for many torture deaths including the lawyers.

Evidently the Iranian jailer is an official, so they are going for higher ups while the U.S. Attorney general is going to cover up for officials who did torture here, and only go after "the peons".

Is There a National Dementia?

Some of the more popular blogs in the U.S., which are main stream in thinking, if there is any such thing any more, are wondering about mental aberrations which they think they have detected, and which are showing up massively in the common public discourse or debate we hear or read all around us.

Daily Kos, for example, has a post Sunday Talk - It's Not the Heat, It's the Stupidity, followed by Idiot Nation, Idiot Press, then It's "f-king stupid"?, and finally So you wanna talk about Hitler, from which the photo comes.

The last one mentioned is a good place to focus, I think, because it shows a domestic scene with growing children, a new baby, a stroll in the country, but also the clothing of madness depicted in the NAZI S.S. uniform one of the participants is wearing.

To me it captures a national schizophrenia or similar dementia, where the normal peaceful way of life is slowly being infected, probably undetected at that time, with a social disease.

During the process at first social disease seems normal, then denial sets in, then anger, then catastrophe, then depression, and finally either revolutionary remedy or final demise.

The conundrum is that there is no treatment for national dementia, and as our national health debate shows, there is a number in the many millions and growing daily, of people who could not get treatment because they do not have health insurance anyway.

There are also indications that the treatment may not be effective to the degree that it is not associated with a physical malady of some sort.

The type of treatment with psychotropic drugs that shows dramatic results is usually associated with some brain chemistry that is out of balance, but which can be offset with prescription drugs.

But who is the nation's shrink who does the diagnosis and then dispenses the cure?

And that is the dilemma, not only in the current word storm damaged landscape, but in American social beliefs in general: one man's sanity is another man's dementia.

The diagnosis "you are a sick S.O.B. for thinking that way" is rewarded with "no, you are the sick one".

I suppose if we treat each other well all will heal, it is just that there is no agreement on what the sickness is or what is the cure is.

On Dredd Blog we have postulated a scenario where a person freezing to death and the associated dementia that goes along with it could be compared to an empire going down by suffering cognitive impairment.

Finally, we think that the healthy approach to life is Ecocosmology, where everyone pulls together to save the human species, and all forms of life are respected as carriers of the cure in some way.