Somebody Whupped This Thing WIth a Big Ugly Stick!

Odd fish have been showing up in Puget Sound (west side of our state) lately...but this is one of the odder ones.

http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2022158324.html

It is estimated to be 325 to 350 pounds. 

I have seen no science yet to indicate if the radiation released by Japan in the earthquake or global climate change is involved but something weird is going on.

Saudi Arabian Women Drive!

I went to Saudi Arabia in 2000 on business and saw firsthand what second (or even third) class citizens women are there.  It is pretty shocking to the Western mind, particularly those bold women who have been a part of the advancement and at least somewhat equalization of women in many Western countries.

Some female Saudi pioneers are trying to push the envelope again -- I offer this video mostly because you just have to see and hear the (male of course) argument against women driving at about the 3:00 mark.  It is absolutely Neanderthal, and while I read about it elsewhere I wasn't ready to believe it until I saw this.  




This also points out the kind of thing that can happen if church and state are mixed or not completely separated.  This is in reality a religion-based dictate, but the ruling House of Saud is teetering between wanting to be accepted and deal with the modern world, and obeying the dictates of the senior clerics who call the shots in most of the areas where religious law (in their eyes) should apply.

Thanks A Lot Richard!

Richard Branson is by all accounts a genial, affable guy with a heck of a lot business smarts, filthy rich (and good looks too).  With all that going for him, why did he have to steal the only description I could think of for the spoken-word poet Sarah Kay? 

She introduced me and a lot of other people to spoken-word poetry with her "Point B" poem, delivered as part of this TED Talk in 2011:





And here she is again in a talk at the Bonnier Grid  2012 Conference (as reported on the Poets and Writers website).




Oh, and what did Richard Branson say anyway?

"Every time I see this girl she gives me goosebumps. As well as being absolutely beautiful, her poetry takes your breath away." 

I have to admit, I couldn't say it any better myself....(but c'mon Richard, I DID think of it first...sort of almost, didn't I?!).

One more...just in case your goosebumps aren't there yet...





In any case, if you have anything of a feeling, evenly faintly poetic receptor in you...you will appreciate this young woman for her wisdom beyond her years, and yes, she will be taking your breath away with her work. 

PBS on Colbert?

The anchors at PBS NewsHour (which I regularly depend upon and is linked to the right) had the opportunity to promote their brand of news (the old-fashioned kind that is actually information) on the Colbert Report recently and I think acquitted themselves quite well.

If you enjoy being a thinker, there is no other comparable source of 'visual' news on TV today, unless your local PBS station also broadcasts the BBC News, which is also excellent and informative, but a bit more world-centered (as it should be).

So the BBC for world news, these women for US (and world) news, and now Hari Sreenivasan has a 'half hour' PBS NewsHour on Saturday and Sundays.  Unlike the screeching heads news channels, they realize that most of the rest of the world is still functioning on our weekends. 

  

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

Good Luck to the Aussies

May a fair wind blow the other way (and some rain be delivered) to help in your fight with some massive fires that are getting worse. 

If any American reading this has had the good fortune to spend any time in Australia as I did several years ago, you know what a friendly, warm, welcoming, strong and versatile people they are.   They have been hit with some real bad droughts and fires in recent years and are perhaps the first "first world" country to suffer the effects of global warming.

Facebook - A Real Class Act

Sometimes....you just have to let the story tell itself (thanks to the BBC for telling it):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24608499

The Myth of GMOs

We seem to be in a run of very-expensive initiatives in our state, and continuing what for me has been a forty+ year run of stupid initiatives that I always vote against.   I wrote earlier about the 'recreational marijuana' initiative and true to prediction it has turned into an unholy mess.  In the end of this travesty it looks like the slightly-more-legitimate medical marijuana industry is going to in all probability be destroyed completely.  The stringent and goofy rules regulating the 'recreational' marijuana industry (a hodge-podge of items to try and keep the Feds at bay and act like the state is in control) will probably have the effect of making sure that no one can make a living growing the stuff...so its easier to just go see the dealer you have been going to for years.

This year's version of stupid is a very expensive campaign for and against the labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  What is interesting about this expensive campaign is that neither side has addressed in any meaningful way whether or not it is even a good and necessary idea.  The ads are all about imagined costs and getting either poor farmers or surrogates of corporate farmers (much more in the majority) to bleat about horrendous costs, etc.

The simple fact is that there is no (that is no, as in none) science that says GMOs are bad. The closest anyone can  come is 'inconclusive' evidence.  A lot of the GMO work done to date is on crops to make them pest-resistant, particularly corn and cotton.  One estimate is that an 80% reduction in the use of insecticides (about 123 million pounds) is due to the introduction of these pest resistant modified crops.  On the other hand, some attempts to use GMO on plants has apparently resulted in the evolution of resistant weeds that are proving hard to get rid of. 

(Anyone else thinking of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park right now..."nature will find a way"?).

The point is, the science has not shown any harm to humans or even potential harm and in fact the first directly genetically-modified meats or fish have not even been produced yet except for one strain of salmon and it is in testing now. 

So...from a thinker's standpoint...this is all a big, expensive campaign that is much ado about no science!  Unfortunately I think it says a lot more about the incredible ignorance of the American public than anything else.

OK, We Blew It (Please Do Better)

There are a lot of reasons for me to be disappointed in "our" generation - in general called the "boomers".  Just in sheer numbers we should have been a driving force for carrying forward the principles and sacrifices of "the Greatest Generation" that was our fathers and mothers. 

But, as boomers came into power and started to run things it quickly turned into the "me" generation, and largely abandoned the principles of responsible and dependable government, raiding the Social Security Trust fund and playing increasingly creative and equally invalid accounting games to make things look like they balanced out and it was OK to "don't worry....be happy". 

To mollify the worriers, Congress came up with a born-dead option called the 401K which is nothing more than an another income source for Wall Street but does nothing to assure retirement. As a result, an unprecedented percentage of retirees are planning to work even further into what should be their retirement years, depriving today's incoming young work force of jobs and opportunities.

Unfortunately, coupled with a generation of "greatest-generation-wannabes" politicians who were all too willing to stick our military into untenable and un-winnable situations (a patriot after all is defined as someone who is willing to sacrifice your children for their "ideals") we ramped up spending on the military to unsustainable heights...all the time ignoring the incontrovertible fact that the largest generational bubble yet was going to hit the Social Security and Medicare systems -- the very ones Congress had been raiding to feed the military-industrial maw.

Tom Friedman had a column on the subject recently, and I hope the young people of today take the challenge seriously (I have a daughter in this group....and I am sorry honey, but the people we put in office were not terribly bright and definitely not long-term thinkers). 

I sincerely hope the new generation can come up with a formula (as a few countries of the world have done) that assures a certain minimum standard of living including fair and reasonable health care for all the people who live in ostensibly the richest country in the world.  

The generation after "the Greatest Generation" has certainly failed.....

The Martians Are Shooting At Us!

Well...not really, but the thought did come to mind when I read this from NASA JPL.  It is a good example of how indirect evidence sometimes clears up unrelated mysteries in science. 

If you haven't been following the escapades of this mission, you are missing out on some very interesting science occurring in our lifetime...even if it is somewhat 'out of this world'.

Thank You Senator McCain

I have been a little harsh on Senator McCain in the past on this blog, but I believe in acknowledging positive steps as well.  Thank you Senator for pointing out the folly of this whole mess that has paralyzed Washington DC even more than normal.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Congress That Couldn't, Wouldn't, Didn't

The rudderless, aimless Congress that hasn't done anything for the last four years seems to be circling the drain...unfortunately they are creating a whirlpool that threatens to take the world economy down with it.  I really wish we had the ability in this country to have a 'vote of no confidence' capability.  The citizenry at large is beginning to think the same way I see....

• 60 Percent Say Fire Every Member of Congress
• Shutdown Debate Damages GOP

By the way, Independents are now a larger group than either political party, so the news is even worse there -- the pool that Congress has to draw from if they ever hope to attract more non-thinkers back to their ranks:

21-Point Swing Against Congressional GOP Among Independents

First They Got Ignorant

And then they voted.

Sometimes...it is not very satisfying to be proved right.

Update 10/8/2013: Fixed link.
Update 12/28/2013: Fixed link again.

Immigration - From the Other Side

Unfortunately, immigration reform has fallen prey to both the mindless, brainless bickering of the children in Congress and the general overall paralysis in Congress that it ensures so it looks like absolutely nothing is going to happen to improve the shameful record of the country that used to welcome "...your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free....".

I offer this Ted Talk as a simple, poignant example of a view from the other side of what can happen....even if the road wasn't always easy. 

Mother Nature and Iran

This is a very interesting column by Tom Friedman about the challenges Iran is facing (specifically environmental) that don't make the sound-byte TV news or the headlines. 

One of the many things I enjoy about Mr. Friedman's analyses is that he has a keen eye for the complexities of a truly global world (even if US politicians still largely think the world is flat and the US solely occupies the "top" side).  He frequently looks in the 'odd corner' or for other underlying factors that the blonde TV bimbos tend to either miss entirely or gloss over.

Happy Thinking!

Jimmy Kimmel - Street-Walkin'

One of the things I have always enjoyed about Jay Leno's version of the "Tonight Show" is the "Jay Walking" segments, where he goes out on the streets and asks seemingly innocent questions, that all too frequently serve to point up the incredible ignorance of the 'man or woman on the street' in the US.

After viewing this particular segment, I don't think there is any question that this fine tradition will be in good hands once Jimmy Kimmel takes over the Tonight Show reins (nor sadly, is there any end to the depths of the average American's ignorance about their country or current affairs).


 

F-35 Strikes...The Pentagon...Again

The unbelievably incompetent saga of the Pentagon and the F-35 continues.  The Pentagon's own auditor, the Defense Department Office of the Inspector General says that the Pentagon oversight was both "inadequate" and "ineffective".

At this point in the costly debacle (follow the Pentagon Spending tag in the cloud on the right side of the blog or search for 'F-35'), I think the only appropriate comment is...."no s*it Sherlock"!!!

Elizabeth Loftus - False Memories

An interesting TED Talk for you thinkers.  The human mind is believe it or not one of the great largely unknown areas of science.  This specifically deals with the issue of false identifications of criminal suspects...and why law enforcement in general frequently has a healthy distrust of eyewitness identifications, no matter how "sure" they are.

Tired of the "Shutdown" BS yet?

The idiocy of the morons in Congress (yes, all 535 of them) has gotten the country nowhere...and it really is a debate about nothing going on in Washington right now (see video below).  Given that all of the parties involved are political party members, which brings their intelligence into question anyway, there is not a lot of hope.     

Enjoy an intelligent, informed discussion of the issues, not available anywhere else on public media except for PBS News.