Hype, Percentages, Comparisons, Supermoons

Supermoons Are Super Dumb | PCMag.com:

I generally agree with the conclusions of this PC Mag article, but had to laugh at them a bit. In true techie nerd "I don't get it" fashion they used about the worst percentage example they could use to make their case ...

Think of it another way: Let's say Dr. Bruce Banner is a completely average American male who measures in at around 5' 9" and tips the scales at 196 pounds. Going by the supermoon's standards for super-ness (e.g. 14 percent larger), whenever the good doctor becomes agitated, he transforms into a Hulk who stands at 6' 7" and weighed 223 pounds. In this instance, the Hulk would be slightly smaller than LeBron James. Intimidating on the basketball court? Perhaps. But hardly "incredible" and definitely not super.

The difference between a 5' 9" guy and a 6' 7" guy is pretty damned significant to people (obviously not Nerds!). It really shows up in pictures, and speaking from experience and only being 6' 4" it really makes a difference in buying clothes, fitting in autos, hitting your head, etc, etc. The standard size range difference between humans is quite small from a mathematical POV (as the PC Mag guys note), but in HUMAN TERMS -- the ones that matter to HUMANS, it is a very significant difference! Just imagine a "typical 5'9" guy married to a 6'7" woman if you are still too much of a nerd to understand this!

A better 14% example might be a 10oz drink vs a 11.4oz drink -- hardly an extra swallow! They DID call out what is REALLY the problem though... nothing to compare the full moon with! ... Which is why the best time to view it is when it is just coming over the horizon so you can see against objects on the earth.

Keep in mind there's nothing to compare the moon to when it's up in the sky, so the slight difference in size will be imperceptible to most people

Not having a reference (something to compare against) is a BIG problem for humans -- it is why TRILLIONS of dollars in debt are essentially meaningless. Even "millions" are beyond our "sit down and count them" understanding, skipping over billions ... the debt is $18.3T and rapidly rising. You can go here to watch the absolute figures unwind. If we did the Nerd comparison with the "average American family debt", which totals nearly $100K per family these days ($70K mortgage, $10k student loans, $5K auto, $8K credit card ...) and stacked THAT next to the US debt, we would have the problem that the average family debt is invsible on the scale of $18T! 

So, the issue is "how to compare"? One nice way would be to compare to GDP over time -- but one has to be very careful about inflation adjustment and the fact that the way they compute GDP gets changed over time -- in fact it changed on the reporting of this most recent quarter which they just provided another "upward adjustment" to, now crowing about 3.7% growth! If this is on the level, based on the adjustment we now grew at all of .7% rather than shrinking at something about the same fraction of a percent. One realizes that we are in extremely deep trouble and it is getting nearly impossible for the rationally oriented to even discover the extent of our plight! 

The striking thing in looking at this chart of US history debt as a % of GDP is that you see that past debt peaks were due to events -- Civil War, WWI, Depression, WWII, ending the Cold War -- but then, BO arrives! There is no identifiable "crisis" or "project" -- suddenly debt heads for record levels with no known end in sight ... in fact, with no known "objective", the left assumption is EVER increasing debt! 

I see no real harm in paying a bit of attention to a "Supermoon" -- if nothing else, it makes people aware that orbits are elliptical, not circular, so they MIGHT tumble that there are astronomical causes for things like "Climate Change" -- but probably not. 

What we REALLY need to realize is that our debt is COMPLETELY INSANE -- as a raw value, as a percentage, compared to a family, relative to history, in terms of assumptions about the future  -- ANY way you look at it! 

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141 US Counties With More Registered Voters Than Citizens

141 counties have more registered voters than eligible live citizens | Power Line:



The Party (D) is absolutely FINE with this. Voter fraud is a cottage industry for TP and having dead, imaginary or "no longer at this address" people on the rolls is a major plus for the fraud industry, so the D's do nothing to enforce getting the rolls up to date.



Franken was elected in MN by fraudulent votes -- no MN counties on the list, but when you "win" by 225 votes, the dead vote doesn't have to work up much of a sweat!



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Worry, Newton, Creativity

Isaac Newton’s neurotic creativity may have been down to negative thinking:

Neurotics ruminate on problems, delving into their causes and the negative effects these might have. They replay these scenarios, amplifying their worries. Brain scans showed people who are good at this negative thinking displayed greater activity in regions of the medial prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain is linked to the conscious perception of threat and danger.

You don't say!  One doesn't need to read very many biographies of creative types -- writers, artists, inventors, etc to realize that this is OFTEN the case -- but certainly not universally. Einstein seemed to be very well adjusted and actually rather happy -- so it isn't a requirement!

There is a bit of irony that it is in the Irish Times -- plenty of rumination, dark side and "issues" to be had there!

The really sad part is that there are a whole lot of us "ruminators" that are in no danger of going down in history with as worthy a name as Isaac Newton -- or even Joyce, Yeats, Swift or  Beckett.

Seems that there is a lot of inequality in the creativity lottery!

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Buckley - Gore, Shout Show Genesis

http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/movies/best-of-enemies-review-how-the-pundit-state-was-born

I will likely see this little film at some point. It asserts that ABC putting my hero (and initial sake ... WFB) William F Buckley, up against Gore Vidal in a snarky debate covering the 1968 elections that was the origin of the "Point, Counterpoint" that we see so often today that was covered so well with humor by SNL in the late '70s'.

Humankind has "progressed" a lot from Socratic Dialogs and even public debates like Lincoln - Douglass. Witness Donald Trump, the essence of the "World Wrestling Federation" as political discourse.

It is clear from reading the linked review that the the reviewer is unable to remotely sever himself from his own deeply ingrained biases.

At a certain point their clash is set up, regardless of their ideals, as the great debater (Buckley) versus the great talker (Vidal), which is probably the most relevant dichotomy here: even as a crypto-fascist, Buckley emerges as the one more concerned with ideas, where Vidal was more content to lob bon mots, smugly ensconced in the rightness of his cause.

Dear me ... "crypto fascist". Fascism is "nationalistic crony-socialism". It is socialism where the government doesn't own much of the industry, but controls it via direct command, regulations, taxation and subsidies. The US today with BO has ANTI-nationalist fascism. He certainly doesn't want to see anyone getting all jingoistic over "America", but he is all for maximization of government control of business by any possible lever.

Buckley certainly was pro-america, so in that sense a "nationalist", but love of country is irrespective of political creed -- lots of communists, capitalists, monarchists, socialists, etc love their country! In no way at all was Buckley a "socialist", and in fact, on the true left-right spectrum, fascism, socialism, communism, monarchy and dictatorship are all LEFT (control), white libertarian (WFB) is RIGHT (chaos).

I do agree though that this general structure -- "the shout show" likely had it's origin in that pairing, so looking through the article is a good little history lesson in how we got to where we are today relative to "political debate"

The reviewer falls into the format himself in the name calling department -- "WFB you ignorant crypto-fascist"!

Murder vs Mechanism, Real Gun Data

We won't get much a gun control lecture with the Virginia shooting because TP and the MSM will just want to forget about it -- the shooter was gay and black. Doesn't fit the approved narrative -- nothing to see here folks, move along.Bill Whittle is a very smart guy -- even got to see him speak in Rochester once. Soft spoken but extremely clear and concise. Worth your time to watch it.

Summary ...

The US is #1 in gun ownership (by A LOT), but #111 in murder rate per 100K. Take out the big Democrat mostly gun  controlled cities -- Detroit, DC, NYC, Chicago, Memphis, St Louis, Baltimore, etc, and we would  be more like 200th.

What he avoids -- because he is a reasonable guy and he might run for office, is that murder is cultural. The highest murder rates are all non-western, Latin, Muslim, etc --- and if you look at our highest murder rate cities, "ditto". White Americans can't comment on culture -- ours has been defined as evil and racist. In the real world, culture does matter, and some work better than others.

Increased violence is just one more aspect of the destruction of American Christian culture -- it isn't racial. If we continue to destroy our culture, our murder rate will go up ... even if the guns are taken, our murder rate will climb ... maybe to something like the Cayman Islands under British rule at #3 63.

Killing is from the human heart, guns are just a mechanism. The left is bent on control -- guns are just one more aspect of that drive for absolute power, with the typical ruse that "they care".  They care about CONTROL -- you are just as dead no matter how you are murdered and they could care less, just as they care less about the 6,000 young black men murdered in the US most years, most in cities with strict gun control.

When you live in a nation that has sacrificed 60 million babies in their mothers wombs on the altar of convenience, you know that you live in a nation that doesn't respect life. When a nation doesn't respect life, the murder rate goes up -- none of the 60 million babies were shot, however they are still dead.

We have always had a lot of guns -- when I was in HS in the 70's we took our guns to school to be blued, to go hunting after, etc -- no gun problem. Something changed -- it wasn't guns, it was culture.

Obama Robbed!

President Obama Says Derek Jeter Swindled Him on the Golf Course | TIME:

This story seems to keep popping up for whatever reason. I suspect that the media thinks it is "cute" or "endearing" for BO as "a regular guy".

Does anyone else find it a little scary that the holder of the top job in the nation is so gullible, narcissistic, overconfident, out of touch, etc that he gets "hustled" and has his "money stolen" by a baseball star? And he is willing to discuss it? Does he not realize this shows him to be a complete CHUMP ??!!

Seems like this alone is enough to explain the Iran "deal", negotiations with Putin on Crimea, etc

Obama gave Jeter a 30-stroke handicap, but that decision cost him in the end: “We had to take a picture of me handing Derek Jeter money at the end of the game,” he said.

A THIRTY STROKE handicap? Hello? Earth to BO ...

The man is obviously a complete chump and apparently PROUD of it to boot! He is SO much of a chump he doesn't even realize he is a chump!!!
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Melting Pot to Piss Pot

Jorge Ramos: 'I've Never Ceased to Be Mexican and I Vote in Elections in Both Countries" - The Gateway Pundit:

Much like the current occupant of the Oval Office who is a "Proud Luo Tribesman" (in his own words from his own book!), or our "Wise Latina Woman" on the SCOTUS, it seems that "Americans" are in short supply -- even in the voting booth.

In the words of Jorge Ramos -- he of recent dust-up with Trump:

I’ve never ceased to be Mexican. I have two passports, and I vote in elections in both countries. I’m deeply proud of this privileged duality. The best thing about America is its embrace of diversity. 

The worst thing about America, of course, is the racist and xenophobic attitudes that tend to emerge now and then — Arizona’s anti-immigrant laws, for example. I hope that one day soon Americans will treat all immigrants, including the 11 million undocumented residents already living in the United States, with the same largess that I experienced when I arrived here.

We used to be a "Melting Pot" ... as evidenced in San Francisco, we are now pretty much a "Piss Pot".

One of the obvious problems with our descent is that it is simply not possible to provide the level of "largess" that Jorge found so appealing to ALL "immigrants" -- legal and illegal. You have to have an old fashioned thing called "a country" with arcane things like borders, citizenship, a budget, solvency, semi-sane policies, etc in order to "provide largesse", and the area of territory between Canada and Mexico is sadly lacking in all of those at this point.

Oh, Whoregay's  daughter works for Hillary's 2016 campaign ... what else is new?

I was driving and listening to the radio a lot yesterday -- Trump has already been castigated heavily in the MSM for his treatment of Ramos and his idea that we ought to actually deport illegals. I'm pretty much of the opinion that "it's over" these days ...

My base opinion would be the old rule of holes "When you find out you are in a hole, stop digging". In this case CLOSE THE FREAKIN BORDER!!! I have no idea what we do with 11 million illegals already here -- it is the kind of problem a sane nation doesn't get into, but while it is probably not reasonable to send ALL of them back as Trump says, I'd say "all" is closer to the right answer than "none". Maybe send "60%" of the less desirable back? I mean, it is ILLEGAL immigration, they ARE criminals.

But closing the border and sending illegals back is considered "impossible" by what passes for "reasonable people" these days -- so I guess the idea of having a "country" in at least this piece of territory is no longer reasonable. Like having a budget, economic policies that produce growth, not cooking the books on the economy, enforcing basic laws / Constitution on people like BO and Hillary, etc, etc.  We just don't have the ability to do what needs to be done to have a country anymore. Which seems like "it's over" to me -- but I guess I'm just a pessimist.

I still don't like Trump and I don't believe in him at all, but it gets easier and easier to see why he stays high in the polls. There are still too many Americans that don't like being a Piss Pot vs a Melting Pot. They are BEGGING for a politician that stands up to somebody like Ramos rather than licks his boots. Hell, I agree with them!

What I'm still having a hard time with -- even though I really ought not to, is actually accepting how far we have fallen. I once sat mesmerized and in awe as Americans walked on the moon, felt a chill rise up my spine as the Berlin Wall fell, I stood proudly on top of the World Trade Center in 1999, and even still felt that pride in being an American when we all pulled together for that short span after 9-11. As late as '09, when Iraq was stable, the US knew success. We are coming up on the five year anniversary of BO handing it over to the terrorists in Aug 31, 2010.

But listening to NPR, CBS, and other MSM radio outlets yesterday, I realize it is GONE!!!  To even THINK that we can have borders and control our citizenship is now "racist and insane" -- we already have Spanish as a de facto second language, our president is most proud of his Luo blood, and we are surrendering to a nuclear Iran without even raising our voice.

I don't believe that Trump can save us, and that is a shame. It would be great of there was an identifiable "America" (one with borders) ... or at least some hoope of their being one.  

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Gay Black Racist Hate Crime?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/26/virginia_tv_on_air_attack_reporter_cameraman_killed.html

A 23-page document Flanagan faxed to ABC at 8:26 a.m. cited racial discrimination, sexual harassment (Flanagan was gay, the document says) and the Charleston church massacre as motivation for Wednesday's attack.

I happened to be driving a lot yesterday -- to IA and back. I found out that the shooter was black in the PM, found out that he was gay when I started reading about it at home. It was treated as a side issue -- which is how it ought to be treated, even if the crazy killer is white killing blacks and has a confederate flag at home! It's the killing that matters! Black killing black, white killing white, babies being killed in the womb -- it is all killing and ALL LIVES MATTER!

The bottom line of this post is very simple -- "hate crimes" should be abolished, and killers ought to be treated as KILLERS especially when they are obviously CRAZY. Unless we have an active terrorist organization(s) killing Americans (eg ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, etc) ... people yelling "Allah Akbar" we really don't need to read all the rambling "manifestos".

Naturally, in this bass-ackwards world we live in, we know that we are NOT going to hear much about what "killers for Islam" write, say, etc because "The Party" finds any negatives about Islam to be nearly as secret as Hillary's e-mails.

So this guy was gay and black and killed white people on air. He had a long history of being really angry with white folks -- they cleared the office when he was fired two years ago, and had police hang around for awhile after. His long winded suicide note even mentions Dylann Roof, the Charleston church shootings and "race war". It sure seems like what we are told is a "hate crime" when whites or straights act against blacks or gays due to their blackness or gayness.

 It will be an interesting test -- can a gay black man commit a "hate crime"? If this doesn't make the cut, it seems that we have the definitive answer to that one! NO!

Hopefully our collective memory hole isn't so well greased that we can't remember what happened nationally after a white racist crazy killed blacks in a church in Charleston. If you need a refresher on how you are supposed to think, here it is.

We KNOW what we are told to think if the shooter is white, christian (as in abortion clinic shooters), has a Confederate flag somewhere, etc ... the crazy is not a factor. The race, the beliefs, the symbols, etc are THE PROBLEM. The message from the media is very clear "whites, christians, "right wingers", etc are HATERS ... and THAT is why the horrible crime happened.

When the obvious crazy Dylann Roof shot the people in the church, the fact we was nuts was secondary (hardly mentioned) -- CONFEDERATE FLAGS and racism were immediately the issue, with not subtle at all attempts to connect confederate flags with republicans. You know, the folks that fought on the wrong side in the Civil War and ran Jim Crow for 100 years!

Flanagan  happened to be a big BO supporter, reprimanded for wearing a BO button on air while doing election reporting:

He was also censured for wearing an Obama sticker while recording a segment at a polling booth during the 2012 US Presidential Election - a clear breach of journalistic impartiality.

I'm thinking we might not hear much about that. If we were looking at a white racist reporter that had lost his job due to affirmative action (in his mind) and had been reprimanded for having a W button, do we suspect we would hear about it?

My prediction is that this killing will simply go away within days -- exactly as the Charleston killing ought to have.  Both are tragic -- the families, friends, co-workers of each grieve, attempt to find meaning in the deaths and remember the victims.

But we do not honor the victims by falsely tying the actions of of a crazed person to some cause, race or symbol that the shooter happened to have! In these two cases -- Virginia and Charleston, the killer was obviously disturbed and THAT WAS THE CAUSE OF THE KILLING! To do otherwise continues the descent of the nation into the state where everything is politis. Events only have meaning in political context, and the population is wired like Pavlovian mutts to unthinkingly respond as their party and media puppet masters dictate.

Shed Sweet Shed 8/26/2015

Link to album

After a summer of lots of frustration, the IA place is finally coming together. Gravel in front, LP tank in, drainfield in, opening for dock to go into lake complete (needs bigger gravel), tile to drain lower part of property to lake and take the water from the gutters,  in!

The gutters are SUPPOSED to go on this Friday, the 2"+ rock for the base where the dock goes in is due tomorrow, more dirt is due next week. Still more to go, but after a LONG summer of delays and waiting, it is "getting close".

If you look at the album you can see the long kitchen counter now with 4 stools, stove, mwave, fridge, cabinets and see the door to the small bedroom. It is very liveable now.

2015 will go down as the summer we never got the dock in -- the thought was that the place would be ready by Mindy's Miles in June -- it is really as of today, August 26, that it finally became ACTUALLY "liveable". Projects in the real world with real weather and real contractors to not show up often fall behind schedule ... badly.

From the "wisdom of today", don't build, find something to buy -- but then of course, you never get exactly what you want. We did that twice, lots of money spent remodelling both times. The good thing about building is that  when you build you have no money left, so you have no temptation to remodel! ;-)

Hopefully as we slide into fall, some crisp nights with pretty sunsets over the water, then winter, with maybe some ice fishing, then the promise of spring, getting the dock in EARLY and hopefully actually enjoying the place a good deal next summer, it will all then seem completely like a great idea and the memories of the frustrations and sticker shocks of 2015 will be only dimly recalled.

I DO understand how I am SUPPOSED to think and feel! ... and sometimes I even do. I covered some of it in this post (some things don't look as "inevitable" as they did then, do they?). It's funny to look back at the bookends of "Pond Depression" and "Pond Elation" from the blog last year ...

If intellect drove emotion, rather than generally the other way around, I'd be completely confident that the "lake place" will become a place of joy and happiness as opposed to a frustrating money sink with endless work and added costs. Most likely it will -- but then, I have moments when the algae is growing in the pond or the water is murky, that I wonder about that as well.

Mooses just think too much! Perhaps a lobotomy is in order!

"Israel Should Be Annihilated"

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran/Israel-should-be-annihilated-Iranian-official-says-413212

"Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan," the Iranian Parliament Speaker's Adviser for International Affairs Hossein Sheikholeslam was quoted as saying by Iran's Fars news agency.

Prior to WWII, Winston Churchill stood virtually alone in saying that it was just possible that Hitler actually meant what he said in Mein Kampf and his speeches. The "smart people" said that it was "just talk", and Churchill was a crazy warmonger. (isn't it surprising that BO also thinks those that disagree with him are "crazy")



What "right" do we have to say who can and cannot have nuclear weapons is really just a translation of "what right do Jews have to exist"?



and as the left thinks of babies in the womb, Christians, and those with views that oppose theirs -- why, no right at all!



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3 U.S. Defeats of Will, Vietnam, Iraq and Iran

3 U.S. Defeats: Vietnam, Iraq and Now Iran - The New York Times:



Brooks does a good job of describing the defeat in Iran -- it is worth the read.

The purpose of war, military or economic, is to get your enemy to do something it would rather not do.

Let's be clear here -- the purpose of the left in this country and world wide has been the defeat of America at least since the Bolsheviks arose in the USSR.  They call it lots of things -- "inevitable", "what right do we have to dictate who has nukes", "being realistic", etc -- but the message is the same. America prostrate before her foes is the only posture that the left in this country or around the world is willing to accept.



BO was able to snatch defeat from victory in Iraq -- just maintaining a small presence there (say 10-20K soldiers) would have prevented the rise of ISIS. Everyone that pays any attention knows this -- but in general, nobody cares. They mostly LIKE the idea of the US being defeated yet again! It makes it less likely we will attempt to exert military (or in the case of Iran, diplomatic) power in the future, and that is just fine by them. We have way too many promised entitlements to afford having a military anyway -- lets be French. Surrender is the best policy! Perhaps the Nazis will stop over for wine after we lick their boots.



Vietnam was the first experience with America on her knees -- the position that the left has long espoused for this once great nation. It was the defeat that signalled the end of America, and we continue to lurch toward the ash heap of history which folks like BO, Hillary and Bernie feel that we more than richly deserve.



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People Who Disagree With Me Are Crazy -- Temperate Rhetoric

Obama: Look How Crazy the Republicans Are! | Power Line:

Well, at least when it comes from our supreme odiferate leader it is temperate and diplomatic rhetoric! Anyone calling BO out as "crazy" is labeled as a racist, bomb thrower, intemperate completely rancid cad! But as we know, things like "bi-partisanship, propriety, statesmanship, courtesy, etc" depend ENTIRELY on which side is doing the talking in our current time.

The article is well written and points out the obvious -- our extreme leader has not a whit of mooring in anything factual, but this is so well established to the sentient that it really doesn't bear repeating.

The sad part is that in order to be a democracy, people have to be informed on issues -- some political hack calling the other side "crazy" provides not a whit of actual information, and the fact that the MSM lets it spew from BO without comment just shows how in the tank our general media really is!

Democracy depends on an independent press -- and we absolutely don't have it!

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Ignorance, My Bliss

The Case for Teaching Ignorance - The New York Times:

This article points to one of what I hope comes through in this Blog; I am ignorant, "the experts" are ignorant, all mankind is ignorant. It could not be otherwise -- we are alive, yet we can barely describe what "life" even is beyond "a really special chemical reaction". We believe we are "intelligent", but the "we" that we perceive as our consciousness is even less understood than "life" -- is it chemical, electrical, quantum, ????, spiritual, or more likely "all of the above"! The question of "the ghost in the machine" goes back at least to Descartes.

In 2006, a Columbia University neuroscientist, Stuart J. Firestein, began teaching a course on scientific ignorance after realizing, to his horror, that many of his students might have believed that we understand nearly everything about the brain. (He suspected that a 1,414-page textbook may have been culpable.)

Looking at a map can make one think they might understand the territory, but the reality is that even a very detailed map carries very little information about the reality of the territory (is it hot? cold? wet? crime ridden? loaded with bugs? ... etc). We are wired as humans to "the illusion of understanding" -- lest we cower in a cave in abject fear unwilling to face the (mostly) unknown world outside and the second to second prospect of mortality (see brain hemorrhage, heart attack, simple choking, etc).

So, as the students above, we VASTLY overcompensate -- we think a thick textbook HAS to cover most everything about the brain. We think that "a bunch of studies, many of them in agreement" on climate MUST correctly predict the future of climate. We especially want to be "more right than others" ... "less ignorant" ... the problem of accumulated "knowledge", much of it mere "data" is that it has a horrible tendency to actually make us LESS aware of our true condition.

Presenting ignorance as less extensive than it is, knowledge as more solid and more stable, and discovery as neater also leads students to misunderstand the interplay between answers and questions. 

People tend to think of not knowing as something to be wiped out or overcome, as if ignorance were simply the absence of knowledge. But answers don’t merely resolve questions; they provoke new ones.

Again, modern man is WAY behind the ancients. It was completely covered in Proverbs 9:10, no special classes required.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

The ancients realized the state of their souls and the fragility of life -- that of being most unholy and uncontrollably near an eternity judged by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God.  

For thousands of years, Western Civilization worked because it was based on: 

1. The fear (best read "awed respect") of a perfectly just and KNOWABLE (to some degree) God. 
2. That God had created an ORDERED and KNOWABLE (to humans) universe. 
3. Man had been given DOMINION over that universe. 

These were powerful beliefs that properly placed man -- as potential master of the physical, servant of the eternal, blessed with the ability to know both the universe and God. The base for western thought brought thousands of years of relative "advancement", and since say "1300", fairly rapidly so. 

But, as in the original Eden, the snake was busy. Did God REALLY create all this? Maybe not ... and if not, maybe he doesn't exist at all. If he doesn't exist, is there REALLY "truth"? Certainly not "ultimate truth" ... and whatever feels good seems a lot more like "human morals". Oh, and BTW, why does man have "dominion" -- is man not just an animal, and therefore no more deserving of a place on the planet than animals? While we are at it, maybe "the earth" is really "divine", and man should "serve the earth"? 

So now we have mass confusion. Our natural desires to "be as intelligent as gods" make us want to fake that we are not ignorant. Meanwhile, our hopeful promethean reach much exceeds our grasp, and we are lost in a random meaningless universe. Unsure of our place -- even relative to the dead rock of the planet, or the clearly less intellectually capable life forms that share it with us. 

We have traded legitimate and actually beneficial "ignorance" (humility, wisdom, the fear of God) for a false sense of "having figured it all out", while our spiritual state is beyond lost -- not knowing even OF God, and having lost all contact with our created place in the universe. 

Proper ignorance (humility) is indeed bliss! In fact, it is WISDOM! 

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A $620K Watch, Record Cold

A $620,000 watch tells what time it is in Vladimir Putin’s Russia:

The European press often seems less controlled than the American. Couple little tidbits here:

Fall comes suddenly to Russia in mid-August, a dose of harsh reality that ends summer’s brief respite with a foreshadowing of the legendary winter that shapes the Russian psyche. With temperatures near record-lows, last week was no exception.

Fall sometimes comes suddenly to MN in August as well -- as I realized last evening I ought to have worn more than a T-shirt down to the last free concert of 2015 down at Mayo Park -- "America". Given my warm nature, it wasn't bad, but as temps started to slide below 60 degrees by the end of the evening, I could have used a bit more warmth. I'm sure it isn't close to a record, but it is certainly closer to cold records here than warm ones.

I remember 2012 being nice and warm for the last concert with George Thorogood, and a couple years where we even decided it was too hot to go. Same sort of remembrances of State Fair. Not looking like those are issues here -- but we of course know from reporting that it is getting hotter all the time. Are you going to believe your own stupid experience or the geniuses that do the warming thing -- heck, some of them can even fake like they work at the CIA and play hooky from their climate gig for 15 years and nobody notices! Are you that smart? See? Those warming people really ARE brilliant!

The rest of the article is an OK read as well on Putin's Russia -- corruption, graft, little or no wage gains, rich getting richer, lots of failures that "should remove him from office". I couldn't help but think that the list sounded just like BO's America -- lots of corruption, graft, no wage gains, big EPA spill,  ... etc, etc Russia might be a tad more honest, they actually report it when they are in a recession ... we fudge the numbers.

I suppose the press in Russia treats things differently than Reuters -- hopefully with the past experience with the USSR, people there know enough to look for answers from other sources!

How many Americans are that intelligent?

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China, Stocks, The Unknown

China to Flood Economy With Cash as Global Markets Lose Faith - WSJ:



People sometimes ask me "what have you been wrong about -- what things do you think you might be wrong about now". I went into a few of them here, but China is a bit in "another category".



My theory is that command economies can't work -- the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, China prior to the '90s, etc. Even "more controlled" economies like Europe and the US that seemingly "keep going" with increasing government intervention, start to show signs of "stagflation", low employment, poor productivity, slower or non-existent growth rates, etc.



But then there has been China. Since the '90s, growing like topsy always supposedly with more to come -- and even more important, with a population dedicated to doing the hard work to continue to make that happen! It has been enough to make a poor Moose wonder about his basic beliefs of economics!



Now it looks like the ship of Beijing is at least in rough water, potentially upon the rocks.

The moves reflect an economy increasingly failing to cooperate with Chinese leaders’ playbook to control the world’s No. 2 economy.

The real world has a horrible (depending on perspective) tendency to fail to cooperate with various pronouncements from "supreme leaders", or even "huge landslide" votes. If it were not so,  death, pain, poverty and a whole host of unpopular elements of reality would have been conjured away by some potentate or populist movement long ago!



For those that believe that God is in his heaven, and we live in an ordered purposeful universe, this is GOOD! For those that believe that man's powers as a conjurer are unlimited, this is of course VERY BAD news! (to the UNconstrained view, in fact THE WORST news! ... because it destroys their entire worldview!)



If the China economy meets a bad end (possibly taking the world for a scary downhill toboggan ride with it), my sense of how things work will be confirmed ... although with some pain in the net worth column!



While "the world" no doubt is a long way from switching fully over to my view on the prospects for long term successful control of the economy by government, this paragraph indicates that they are are least having some second thoughts on the brilliance of the Chinese attempt at economic command and control.

“The world is starting to realize China is not nearly as competent as thought, especially in the economic sphere where everyone gave it good grades,” said Fraser Howie, co-author of “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise.”

The following paragraph gives a superb opportunity to understand why growth is hard:

A key problem is that risk-averse banks continue to favor state-owned companies, eschewing private enterprises with less-traditional collateral and balance sheets. This often leaves entrepreneurs with higher growth potential to fall back on high-interest non-bank financing or go without. Meanwhile, many state-owned companies, already awash in cheap capital, are reluctant to borrow because of overcapacity in various industries.

Let me try to break this down so it is understandable to all:

• "risk-averse" -- general human nature is risk-averse. Thus insurance, votes for "security" provided by the the government, etc. 
• "State-owned companies" are VERY risk averse -- as is the government, THEY CAN AFFORD TO BE! 
• The "wildcard" is THE PROFIT MOTIVE! Keynes "animal spirits" -- the counterpose to "risk-averse", that if ignited, drives the economy forward. 
• BUT, the government typically ends up dousing animal spirits and rewarding the risk-averse. It seeks to increase state actual ownership, or "de facto ownership" (as in medicine, education and other industries in the US), it seeks to increase regulation, it seeks to increase taxation -- all of which reduce the animal spirit (DRIVE) of the economy. It picks PAST winners and strangles potential future winners in the cradle. 

Eventually, "reality intrudes" -- it turns out that "the state" or "government" is not magic, all-powerful, etc, but rather just another competing organization that can suffer losses, lose the confidence of it's own people and other governments, and eventually, collapse -- the imaginary "security" that it so fervently promised is exposed as a chimera.



USUALLY, reality intrudes at levels smaller than "collapse" -- stock market crashes, housing or land value collapses, "austerity", financial controls, "stimulus packages" -- but not always, sometimes it is bigger. A political party dies, a new form of government comes in, violence, etc.



In my worldview, these things are inevitable, not surprising, and like "surgery now vs surgery later" can even have positive effects without killing the patient. It is like "pruning a tree", or "weeding the garden" -- expected and normal.



To those that believe that government is something "beyond the world" however -- that it is capable of "conjuring spirits from the vasty deep" (to butcher Shakspeare), problems as we see in China create great anguish since ultimately they call the infallibility of man through government into question, and since that is the only faith they have, that is a crisis indeed!



"There be Dragons" -- the unknown, out of our hands. If you are a "progressive", such shouldn't even exist -- because you believe that the world is "getting better" through more and more control exerted by man.



I prefer the unknown.



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