Thursday, March 31, 2011

Earliest writing translated


A French scientist, after two decades of work, has managed to translate some 30,000 year old markings on a cave wall, likely the earliest example of written communication. This short passage, roughly translates to: "This new discovery, fire, should be banned from human society. This technology is so dangerous that it threatens to wipe out all human life. And for what, just to make our food warm?"
So there you have it, human nature.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

call it gulch or creek, but respect the power of nature.


A local town, Capitola, experienced flooding when a six foot in diameter pipe burst under the pressure of water from recent rains. The city, state or someone once upon a time decided to cram a creek into a pipe, showing an arrogance that almost always comes back to bite people in the ass. Little creeks usually trickle, but water is dynamic, and sometime little creeks become, for a short time, raging rivers. This particular creek is called a gulch, further compounding our arrogance.
Yeah, sure, call it a gulch, shove it through a pipe and forget about it. Well, not quite.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Radiation Monitoring

Big news! There are some gaps in our radiation monitoring system, some sites closed down for maintenance and the like. So, this is now a big deal, with the EPA and elected officials in a panic.
OK, some radiation manages to drift over the US. What are we going to do about it? Perhaps there's a big fall out shelter in some mountain in Colorado we can all run to. New flash, there's nothing much you can do about radiation, whether you know about it or not. I mean, there's no spray that will keep it off you.
However, panicking about possible undetected radiation is easier than fixing our economy, our failing schools, our crumbling infrastructure, our massive unemployment and our addiction to empire building on credit.
Excuse me while I yawn about the monitoring system.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Sacred ground, nonsense!


Another piece about some project on hold because of tribal sacred burial grounds. Seems that every tribe, ethnic group and religion has a catalog of holy or sacred places. Sometimes I wonder if there are any places outside of Antarctica that aren't sacred.
A good example is Jerusalem, a very old city that is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims. I've always wondered why, for what reasons is it holy?  Is it just because these people have been fighting over it for centuries?

In my opinion, there is no such thing as holy land. Land is land, and people use it to live on, to work on, to grow crops on or even to leave alone because its ecological, aesthetic or natural resource value requires us to do so. When some tribe talks about ancient burial grounds, I have to think that these buried bones are likely as distantly related to the tribes as Oog, the caveman who painted on cave walls in France 40,000 years ago is to me.  

I suspect consecrated ground is derived from constipated minds.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Each day the newspaper is stuffed with ad inserts, which I guess is OK, because my subscription doesn't cover the paper's costs. However, one retailer, which shall remain nameless has a flyer that advertises a sale, and there is always a mid week sale and a weekend sale, so their stuff is on sale 4 out of 7 days. So since there are more sale days than not, what is the regular price?  Logically the regular price is the 4 day price, and the other three days they are having a... what do you call it when they raise prices on special days?

Thursday, March 24, 2011

redevelopment agencies

Local redevelopments agencies in California are up in arms over Gov. Brown's plan to eliminate them. As a result, they are locking up as many redevelopment funds as possible before the axe falls.

Oh, my, what would life be like without redevelopment agencies?  I guess we'd all have to drive a full mile before getting to the latest strip mall with all the usual suspect chain stores. Wouldn't that be terrible?

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

So. Daktoa abortion law

South Dakota passed a law making women wait and get counseling before getting an abortion. With the world population climbing toward 7 billion, women should get cash rewards for having abortions.

Monday, March 21, 2011

It ain't personal

Exciting world!  earthquakes, floods, drought, hunger, disease, radioactivity. Some of us would feel better if there were a reason, perhaps some god or gods sitting in judgment of what your neighbor did last Saturday night, judging and bring down tornados throughout your state as a sign of disapproval.

We might blame ourselves for being environmentally insensitive, thinking that the earth is now striking back, putting us in our places.

The reality is that none of it is personal. We live on a little rock, with a dynamic core and atmosphere. Stuff just happens, and we just happen to get in the way. Think about when you accidently step on a line of ants.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

All about "me."

Apparently, to many people, it's all about "me."  A serious disaster in Japan, along with a partial meltdown of a reactor becomes a reason of protest and panic thousands of miles away, on California's central coast.

Suddenly, fear of nukes has been ramped up to new levels, and people are running around thinking the radiation in the sky is falling, falling particularly on them. These are the usual suspects, the ones who push the panic button over everything. To these folks, the ubiquitous "They" are always doing something that will cause the undoing of the good people milling around in the streets.

I suspect that these are the same folks who will drive their cars across town to protest against air pollution. 

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Obama stands up, we think, to Ghadafi

Obama has issued an ultimatum to Ghadafi, telling him to stand down his troupes or else.
My question is, "Or else or what?" Despite the rumors I've heard about our President going in for a spine transplant, I can't help wondering what he plans to do if Ghadafi thumbs his nose at us.
So, because everything from choice of soft drinks to running the country is now put to a public poll, I have one for all of you.
If Ghadafi doesn't heed the warning, Obama will do...
A. Pass a series of resolutions
B. Give a very long speech to the American public
C. Send a few hundred soldiers to Afghanistan
D. Write a check to some Wall Street bankers

Friday, March 18, 2011

grab an opportunity where you can

An email from our assemblyman, Luis Alejo contained the following line: "On Monday, March 14th, my colleagues and I joined to adjourn in memory of the victims of this on-going disaster." Calif is in a financial crisis, and the two major clown parties can't agree on a budget. However, they can all agree on one thing, use a disaster on the other side of the globe as an excuse to take the day off. 
Gotta love this creative thinking.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Good ol' American priorities.

All over the world, people are dealing with heavy problems. Japan has the earthquake disaster, followed by nuke meltdown. All over the middle east, people are fighting in the streets against dictators. There are civil wars in Africa and the world economy is on the verge of collapse.
Here in American, the feds raided a medical pot place in Montana. It's nice to know that at least America has it's priorities straight.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

a nation of 12 year olds

Let me see, we spend billions occupying Iraq and Afghanistan for year (eventually decades), but we can't send a few planes to fly over Libya to keep a dictator from bombing his countrymen. We can lay off public employees who do vital jobs, but we can't ask multibillionaires for an extra couple thousand to pay for services we all use.
We can spend hundreds of hours debating things endlessly in our legislative halls, but we can't spend ten minutes passing the most mundane budgetary law. We can cause mass panic with trumped up accounts of tsunamis, but we can't educate our people about what to do in a real disaster. We, as a nation, can bullshit endlessly, but we can't take a moment to think about what we're saying.
We've become a nation of 12 year olds.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Sudden panic over nuclear power

The unfortunate partial melt down of Nuclear reactors in Japan has provoked the expected knee-jerk reactions back here. The people in Washington who get paid to talk are all chatty about rethinking our nuclear plans. Now, I'm sure some senators will get up and vote against any new nuclear plants.

No energy source is without risk, from coal to oil to nukes. Short of covering every square inch of the US with wind farms, wind isn't going to supply our needs, and solar isn't ready to pick up all the slack, if it will ever be.

The issue isn't black or white. It's not build nuclear power plants everywhere or nowhere. It's a matter of thinking about where you build them. Earthquake fault lines, in low coastal areas prone to tsunamis, at the foot of active volcanoes are among the least desirable places for them. Cautious planning and construction, along with continuing research into storage of spent radioactive material, will make nuclear power safe enough for us to use.

What the hell; we can always just turn off all the lights.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Natural disasters


Often people search for either meaning or some pattern in natural disasters, often attributing them to human action or some divine punishment.

The relationship between disasters and humans come in three varieties. There are the ones we are responsible for. If we channel a river and then build in the flood plain, when there's a good rain and the river comes up, we cause our ill-conceived building to flood.

There are disasters that are a hybrid of human and nature. Pumping CO2 into the atmosphere causes climate change, which, through a chain of activity, can make hurricanes, natural occurrences, more intense, thus causing more damage.

Then there are disasters that have nothing whatsoever to do with humans, such as the huge earthquake that hit Japan. In those cases, the earth does what it does, and it has nothing to do with us. We aren't all that important.  

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Panic in Watsonville


I've always wanted to go to Norway and see the migration of the lemmings, where then swarm to the edge of the bluffs and often plunge into the sea. I haven't made it yet, but I saw the next best thing. The recent earthquake in Japan caused a tsunami warning, actually more of an advisory along our coast. People who lived along the three sea level neighborhoods were advised to go to higher ground to avoid possible problems from a projected 2-3 foot tsunami.

It did come, and the ocean retreated and than washed in again and up the beach. It didn't inundate the beachfront streets. However, in Watsonville, over three miles from the beach, a beach which is backed by 30 foot sand dunes, thousands of people crowded the streets, stopping traffic for miles, in a effort to get up the hill. Some went as far as Hollister, almost 30 miles inland. At most of the schools perhaps 10 percent of the students showed up. I can only guess about the businesses that tried to open without their employees.

I doubt that a herd of sheep would have acted this way.  

Friday, March 11, 2011

wilful ignorance


I call it willful ignorance, and it's much like what happens to the frog in hot water, but you can't blame an animal with an IQ of under 7. You can, however, blame humans, most of which have an IQ well over 7.

The frog in question will, if dropped in boiling water, immediately leap out. The same frog placed in cool water that is gradually warmed to boiling, will simply sit there, unaware of its impending doom.

As the various problems in our society become crises, the public just sits in that national tub of warming water, ignoring the signs around them. Crises, what crises?  A short list would include foreign policy, domestic politics, the economy, education, outmoded religious notions, the environment and public discourse. And that was the very short list.

Anyone who has been forced to confront even a smattering of history can see that a society that follows unsustainable social policies ends up on the trash heap of history. Quite likely, as in our society, most people were totally taken by surprise when everything suddenly came down around their ears.

People believe, without thinking about it, that we can continue to pollute our water and still have water to drink, that we can starve education and still have a creative, dynamic work force, that we can neglect our infrastructure and still have active trade, that we can cling to antiquated religious notions and still not descend into barbarism, that we can continue to trust one or the other major political parties to fix things, when neither have had a workable solution in years, that we can continue to make war when there is no money to pay for it or that we can continue to spend without going broke.

Unfortunately, most people don't want to hear this. When someone tries to break through the insulation of willful ignorance, they put their fingers in their ears and shout, "Lalalalala." 

This attitude probably wouldn't bother me as much if I were not in the same leaky boat with these folks.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Discovery, end of a era


The space shuttle Discovery is about to wrap up its final flight, and soon the whole program will be history. I know that we can debate the scientific benefits of the program vs the costs, but I think there's a bigger issue, something symbolic.

Our manned space program was a symbol of a time of pride, a time when we all looked up to the stars and dreamed big dreams about big changes. Now, we are reduced to looking down at the ground and dreaming of finding small change.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Some things don't necessarily go together


We tend to love to lump things together and treat them as all the same stuff. It's so much easier than taking each thing on our list and thinking about it separately. It's human nature, I guess.

One case in point emerged in the conflict in Wisconsin, over public workers rights to collective bargaining and other union issues. Seems all the public employees are protesting, the teachers among them. Some teachers were talking about an attack on collective bargaining and tenure, as if these were like items, fit to reside in the same bag. They are not.

Collective bargaining is an organized way for employees to negotiate wages, working conditions and benefits. Management and labor can sit down and engage in give and take until they work out an arrangement that both sides can live with. Neither side has absolute power, so neither side gets totally screwed.

Tenure is a different animal, and not every job has something like it. Someone who starts his or her third year as a contracted teacher suddenly has a job essentially for life, whether he or she continues doing it properly or not. That's a right no one should have, teacher or janitor.

Naturally, firing anyone should involve due process, where perhaps a panel drawn from workers and management can hear the case and decide the merits. In the case of teachers, a school board member and perhaps a parent should be involved. In any case, a good teacher should be retained, a bad one fired. And that has nothing to do with the pay or benefit package, which apply to those who are worth to receive them, not to anyone who managed to hang in there until the magic day.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Last word on fallen actor, Sheen

I inadvertently started a debate when I commented on all the hype about the activities of a TV actor, Charlie Sheen, whose program, I would guess, was probably mediocre. I was told yesterday that he'd been fired by whoever way paying him, station, sponsor, whatever. That should be the end of it, but I'm afraid it's only the beginning.

At some point he will likely go into some rehab program for whatever addiction issues prompted his firing. After that, he'll have someone ghost write a book about his experiences, which will be picked up and discussed endlessly by celebrity voyeurs, which will serve to distract them from the serious issues of the day. This attention will reanimate his career, make him a big star and prove, at least in America, that vacuous still rules.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Can't stop the guns?


New article: US can't stop the flow of guns to Mexico. Weak-kneed reporter. Our government can but won't stop the flow. Remember people can walk in and buy many crates of automatic weapons, pretty much as easily as you buy a case of beer. And they need these guns because... going hunting?  Need to protect against burglars?  No, between the corruption in Mexico and our unwillingness to regulate sales of assault weapons, let the carnage begin.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sociial Retard needs help

Since I'm a social retard, I seem to be concerned about the economy, education, the environment when I hear I'm supposed to care passionately about the carrying on of that marginal actor, Charlie Sheen. Someone help me adopt the proper level of concern.

American kids living in poverty.

On 60 mins tonight, 25 percent of American kids living in poverty. At the same time the weasels who conned us into sending them to Washington, rather than put the crooks who caused our economic problems in jail, have given them billions to reward them for their corruption. But what happened to the rest of the money that could restore the economy? Oh, yeah, the weasels sent it to Iraq and Afghanistan.