Yet Another Flood Of A Lifetime

I

f you are one of those people who likes to stand in front of a bus and complain when you get run over, then you won't like what I am about to say.

I am a native Houstonian and a transplant Jakartan.  Both cities are now and have always been prone to floods.  The cities are built on river deltas, which attracted people because the soil was so rich and fertile from...get this...the flooding.  In the 40-odd years I lived in Houston, I saw five "floods of a lifetime."  In the ten years I have lived in Jakarta, I have seen three epic floods.

In a nutshell, if you live in one of these cities and complain about flooding, then you are an idiot.  Sorry to be so blunt, but it is a fact of life that has never and will never change.

When I lived in Houston, I always lived in areas that never flooded.  They were the highest points in the city and everyone who had lived in Houston for any length of time know which areas are prone to flooding and which aren't.  Same with Jakarta.

I chose the area of Jakarta, where I live now, based in part on topographical maps, and part on local wisdom.  This area is often surrounded by flooding, making it difficult to get in or out, but my house is always high and dry.  The same can be said of the neighborhoods that I lived in, in Houston.

Last night, I was watching various coverage of the Houston mess and heard on man being interviewed on a local "news" cast.  "This is the third time my house has been flooded and I think it's time to do something about it," he declared emphatically.

Hey, stupid idiot, I found myself thinking, move somewhere else, preferably out of the flood plain.

I lived in Houston during Carla, Alicia, Allen, Allison, two back-to-back storms in 1973 whose names I don't remember, and others that had no names.  Every single one of them caused the "flood of a lifetime."  Every single one of them caused flooding in the same areas of the city - primarily east and south of the city, which amazingly is where most of the flooding is right now.

Much has been made of TeeVee station KHOU coverage, where they had to move the broadcasts upstairs due to the lower floor being flooded.  This is the fourth time I distinctly remember that happening.  The station's offices are on the banks of Buffalo Bayou, which floods every time someone flushes a toilet.  It is surrounded with flood gates.  It has had an emergency studio upstairs for decades for just this reason.

The real tragedy here is not the flooding.  That has been going on long before any of us can remember, and will continue long into the future.  The tragedy is the sheer number of people standing in front of a bus complaining about being run over.

While I don't take the loss of life lightly, nor the personal loss experienced by many people who belongings are floating in a swamp right now, I have to reiterate the statement by the man on TeeVee.
"This is the third time..."

I have seen well over a dozen major floods, in Houston, Jakarta, New Orleans, and along the Gulf Coast and across Indonesia.  In every case, the floods occur in places where flooding is common and expected.  In every case, people move into the areas because, gee-shucks, it hasn't flooded in a long time there...maybe even a lifetime.

The upshot is, if you live in a flood-prone area, build to reflect that obvious fact.  If you live in an earthquake-prone area, build to reflect that obvious fact.  If you live next to a volcano, don't come bitching to me because there's lava in your living room.  And for God's sake, stop asking taxpayers to bail you out every time your lack of forethought gets you in trouble.

While I mourn the loss of life and feel a sense of loss for those who have lost property, I hardly find it a tragedy.  The tragedy is that humans apparently refuse to learn from history, geography and meteorology.

I'm sure the residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum were shocked by the devastation wrong by Mount Vesuvius, but which of us hasn't thought that they were idiots for living on the flank of an active volcano?

I suppose that if Americans are willing to bail out college-educated banksters who took excessive risks and lost, then they are willing to bail out folks who live in a swamp in a hurricane-prone area.  It doesn't change the fact that at some point, people need to take personal responsibility for their actions and choices.

If I can move to flood-prone Jakarta, a city I had never been to before living here, and be able (with a little research and forethough) find a section of town to live in that doesn't flood, I know everyone else can do it, too.

Yes, we call it Common Sense, but it is far from common.

White Is Black, Left Is Right

UPDATE: I no sooner get my rant posted than Lew Rockwell pops up with nearly the same argument, though with a more serious tone.

I have to say it has been very entertaining watching the antics of the American GeezerMedia for the past year.  They are in complete meltdown and don't understand why no one is listening.  Even Hollywood is feeling the pinch as folks just plain get tired of all the mind-control crap being pumped at them.

I predicted years ago, somewhere around the time I started this blog, that this would happen.  Eventually, the lock-step group-think would lose its grasp on society and the swing back to the other side would begin in earnest.

The socialist goose-stepping reached a peak under Obama.  A kind of semi-religious hush fell over the populace, where no one could criticize the first black president.  The Democrats tried desperately to keep the magic going with the first female president (I purposely won't use "woman" to describe Hillary Clinton), but it failed miserably.  Now all the Puppet Masters and their mind-controlled clowns are panicked as their perceived perch atop the world's Mind is lost.

The most interesting part of this whole charade is the intense battle to define Fascism as a right-wing phenomenon, and the desperate attempt to define the common terms used in everyday life, so that the Puppet Masters can control how and what people think.

The right wing are called "alt" and "extreme," while the left wing are "fighting" and "reacting."  No media outlet will mention that the right-wingers have all taken permits for their marches, while the left-wingers show up uninvited and start all the fights.  Wild attempts are underway to silence anyone that doesn't sync with the Proscribed Narrative.  Corporations, NGOs and all sorts of quasi-official "authorities" have been mobilized to plug the drain.

What no one, and I mean NO ONE is saying is that Fascism is defined by the marriage of corporate and governmental power.  That is its raison d'etre..  That is what differentiates it from other forms of "authority."  It is not a left-right paradigm, it is up-down, which doesn't fit in the carefully crafted narrative we are all supposed to consume and spew back.

The other thing that is being VERY CAREFULLY hidden is the fact that the term "Nazi" is short for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.  If you don't read German, that's the National SOCIALIST Workers' Party.  It's a left-wing movement.  Damn fools think most people won't look it up on Giggle or are completely ignorant of history.  Well...I guess they're right in that regard.

As they pull down statues right and left, they are also banking (used advisedly) on the fact that no one knows the Civil War was started by Democrats, that racist Dredd Scott laws were instituted by Democrats, and that Democrats have caused just about every major collapse of civilization in the past 2,500 years, starting with the Greeks.

Furthermore, NO ONE will mention that the entire premise of Democracy rests on an educated and erudite populace, which judging by the campuses in the US don't exist anymore, if ever.

In every single instance in current events, it is the left-wingnuts who are censoring, destroying and injuring.  It is the left-wingnuts who fling urine and feces at peaceful protesters.  It is the left-wingnuts who ambush police, burn down businesses and demand the silencing of even the slightest opposition.  And it is the left-wingnuts who control the GeezerMedia narrative and make it positively unpalatable.

Some may point to the Neo-Cons, but they are left-wingnuts in disguise.  There is no difference philosophically between the transition from LBJ to Nixon, than from Obama to Trump, except that there are exactly ZERO conservatives in the US Federal gummint.  There are only Democrats, and Democrats who called themselves Republicans to get elected, with the possible (though tentative) exception of Rand Paul.

The public narrative is oh-so-careful not to point out that Nazis were left-wingnuts and that all this collusion between corporations and government is the very definition of Fascism.  In a real and organic system of government, it is supposed to protect people from the corporations and the use of financial power to seduce and coerce the masses.

It is an absolutely bizarre spectacle going on the US these days.  It is the insane leading the deluded.  It is normal people being overrun by nitwits whose idealism comes from a bottle of Xanax.  And in the end, puerhaps that's the root of it.

Perhaps Big Pharma has so doped the populace that people are incapable of reacting to stupidity, or conversely, folks too drugged to comprehend reality.  Perhaps all 300 million Americans are in a pharmaceutical cloud, incapable of clear thinking on anyone's part.  Nothing else adequately explains the sheer disconnect from anything sane.

It is a medical Matrix

John McCain Takes It In The Rear

Related to nothing in particular, I find it rather peculiar that three US Navy ships - all high-tech destroyers - have been put out of service in the past few years.  One of them, the USS Cook, was shut down and mock-strafed a dozen times in the Black Sea in 2014.  The other two, USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain (har!) both collided with merchant ships this year.  The Fitz in the Sea of Japan last June, and now the McCain (har!) in the Strait of Malacca over the weekend.

These three incidents don't include the USS Antietam, which ran aground in Tokyo Bay, and the USS Lake Champlain, which hit a South Korean fishing boat, both earlier this year.  And let's not forget the USS San Francisco, a nuclear submarine that hit an undersea mountain (according to the Navy) back in 2005.

Any one of these in isolation seems like a accident, even command incompetence.  But   But six of the US Navy's prize toys in the past 12 years, and all but one in the Pacific Ocean?  And all having catastrophic navigation failure, with the Cook's entire weapon system down, as well?

Now, my aunt worked for the Secretary of the Navy for decades in Washington, D.C.  My dad was a merchant marine for a time in his youth.  My uncle was a reactor tech on a nuclear submarine for a decade.  I worked in the offshore petroleum industry for a decade, as well.  I've seen the bridges of a lot of ships, both US Navy and merchant.  I know the RADAR and GPS systems, the automated avoidance systems, and the trained crews who can spot a floating pelican a mile away in 20-foot swells.

This sort of thing just doesn't happen.  The global shipping network is every bit as sophisticated as the one used for aircraft.  Ships regularly ping satellites to both get their position, and to broadcast it to the global network.  In recent years, the ship autopilot does most of the work, tracking other vessels and adjusting course to maintain safe maneuvering distance.  In busy shipping lanes, such as the Sea of Japan or the Strait of Malacca, electronic buoys put out reference signals that ships use to align their course and maintain a fairly wide berth with other vessels.

In the case of the Fitzgerald, the ship was T-boned by a merchant ship, causing (get this) half a billion dollars in damage and requres the ship to be dry-towed back to the States for repair.  The ship cost $1 billion brand-spanking new, complete with that new-ship smell and everything.

Early reports on the McCain (har!) say that it sustained damage to the rear port quarter after colliding with a merchant oil tanker.  So, um...did she back into the tanker?  I'm just trying to imagine a scenario in which it would take damage in that location.

In all three cases, the only thing that can explain these "mishaps" is for the ships to be completely blinded and their computer guidance systems shut down.  In the case of the Cook, the ship's defensive system crashed and it was unable to track and/or respond to an old Russian bomber making a dozen strafing passes directly over the vessel in the course of half an hour.

There are only a few ways these things can happen:

1) Gross Negligence - this is obviously the preferred story of the US Navy.  While certainly not good, one gets the impression that there is an easy fix - fresh leadership and some public floggings to raise morale.  The Fitz' commander has been blamed for the incident and is now pushing a pen.  The Cook was deeply hushed up, but some reports had a significant number of crew resigning once they docked.  The McCain (har!) is still fresh, but odds are favoring this excuse.  The Strait of Malacca is busy and relatively narrow at some points, but traffic is fully automated through the area and thousands of vessels pass through every year without incident.

2) Equipment Failure - without access to the procurement logs, it is a safe bet that at least some of the electronics on all three vessels were manufactured in China.  If I were China, I could hardly pass up the opportunity to put back doors into every chip and board I supplied to the US Navy.  Imagine that scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where Kirk broadcasts a remote code and turns off the opposing ship's shields.  Also think about Boeing's tech that allows ground crews to take remote command of aircraft in emergencies.  Jamming satellite signals would also be quite effective.

3) EMP Weapon - use of a MASER or GASER of sufficient power and portability would make an effective weapon against even hardened computer cores.  One good blast and the entire ship's electronic system would be fried beyond repair, thus blinding (at minimum) and rendering harmless modern naval weapons.  Considering these toys were fairly well advanced under the 1980s Star Wars program in the US, it's not inconceivable that China and/or Russia have mastered them by now.

When taken together, there is a preponderance of issues with the 7th Fleet in the Pacific.  With two previous black eyes this year, however, it seems rather unlikely that it is a leadership problem.  That would be remedied after one incident, but certainly after two, and it is rather inconceivable that three in the span of six months would occur due to gross negligence.

The one caveat to this thinking is that the US Navy is corrupt and mismanaged from the top down to the Oilers and Stokers.  If that is the case, then the US is hardly able to project force in its own territorial waters, much less 10,000 miles away.

It is no secret that China is a tad upset with the US meddling in the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan, both locations with significant petroleum deposits and both disputed by neighboring countries.  Options 2 and 3 both allow China the opportunity for some mischief in order to make a point.

In Option 2, Chinese chips and/or boards could be hacked through carefully hidden exploits that allow mirroring the ship's systems back at headquarters.  The problem I see with this option, though, is that it might work once, maybe even twice, but I imagine the Navy has scoured their computer cores looking for such weaknesses and would have remediated the problem by now, or at least recalled vulnerable vessels for a refit.  It is conceivable that China's vaunted "quantum computing" systems can get in and out without a trace, but it seems that technology is still too young to account for all six incidents spanning the last 12 years.

That leaves Option 3.  If you are not familiar with MASERs and GASERs, click the links above to catch up.  They are hardly new technology, but making them portable would be a major advancement, as would space-based systems if atmospheric distortion could be compensated for to maintain beam coherence.

A bit of lead shielding might stop even a fairly powerful MASER (microwaves), but a GASER (gamma rays)?  Gamma rays hitting any metal would create a shower of X-rays inside a shielded compartment - one of the main issues with astronauts passing through the Van Allen Belts on the way to the Moon.  With sufficient power and focus, a GASER could fry a computer core almost instantly with little or no concomitant damage, unless a human happened to be standing in the precise line of fire.

On that last note, there is the issue of seven dead and dozens injured on the Fitz, and as of this moment, a dozen injured and 10 missing on the McCain (har!).  Quickly hiding sailors with severe radiation burns would be first order of business in an incident like this, if one was trying to hide the cause.  Certainly, the US Navy would be highly motivated to hide such an attack, as it wouldn't want enemies to learn of such weakness, much less the folks back home who think all these toys are protecting them.  In fact, the latter motive might be a higher priority to keep those tax dollars flowing into the war biz.

In the civilian world, MASERs and GASERs require lots of support equipment, large power sources and heavy cooling apparatus.  With a little tinkering and bottomless budgets, though, who knows what could be achieved.  Messing up tracking and navigation systems would be a major priority for someone trying to shut down the most feared navy in the world.  The inability to maneuver and target effectively renders such a navy harmless.  Not something you would want to get around.

Better to make it look like incompetence, shuffle some faces around to look like people are getting their wrists slapped, and work like hell to try and develop some kind of defense.

I happen to think this morning's incident with the McCain (har!) was a message, purposely louder than the five previous ones, given the name of the vessel and the identity of the loudest War Hawk in the US Congress (John McCain of Arizona - party loyalty unknown).  It is also of note that the Strait of Malacca is the primary waterway between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, running between Malaysia and Sumatera, directly into the northeast coast of Singapore.  Also, this incident occurred just as the US and South Korea are beginning war games.  Three otherwise curious fingerprints on a clear message.

Taken on the whole, it seems reasonable to conclude that China has a pulsed-energy weapon that can scramble hardened computer cores.  While the Trump Administration makes all kinds of noise on the public stage, China is quietly sending messages through action, by targeting US Navy vessels around its coastal interests by knocking out their navigation (and presumably targeting) systems seemingly at will.

If all this speculation is correct, we should see the US tone down its war rhetoric in North Korea and quietly back down from the South /China Sea and Sea of Japan challenges to China's hegemony in the region.

If not, we can assume that the US Navy is completely hollowed out and/or they are a lot stupider than any of us previously thought possible.

And The Truth Shall Set You Free

Since the Confederacy has been so horribly maligned in recent events, what with the wholesale destruction of monuments, the defiling of the Confederate flag and the entrenched belief that the Civil War was about slavery, it seemed an apropos time to review real, actual history.

For our foreign readers, one must keep in mind that most Americans are hopelessly ill- or maleducated.  The government schools only allow carefully controlled information into the classroom and more time is spent on wrapping bananas in condoms than on important subjects like history.

Couple the poor state of US education with the wholesale take-over of schools by Progressive left-wing fanatics and you have a potent weapon against the human intellect.  While we can't hold hapless victims responsible for maleducation, we can fault them for not seeking the truth on their own, and worse, for their parents' lack of interest in what their children's heads are being filled with.

The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.

Let that sink in a bit.  For many people this statement will seem false, even repulsive.  One's emotional reaction, however, does not affect the truth of it.

In the North, Abraham Lincoln was a confirmed racist, who abhorred the very idea of whites and blacks living together as equals, and especially the thought of the races intermarrying.  He rather lent his support to an effort to ship slaves and free blacks back to Africa, where the country of Liberia was founded for the express purpose of receiving the deported individuals.

Slavery did not end in the North after the Civil War.  In fact, slave markets could still be found in New York City, Baltimore and other cities long after the South was crushed.  The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the Confederacy, and so the Yankees enjoyed their slaves for some time following the hostilities.

The Civil War was, in fact, caused by the Democratic Party.  Big surprise there, since they seem hell-bent on repeating their great achievement again.  That wonderful party of slavery, income taxes and other horrors gave the country institutional slavery, commonly called Dred Scott.  It took its name from a black slave who sued in US courts (not Confederate) for his freedom, only to have the US Supreme Court deny his freedom.  The Court declared that blacks could never be free citizens of the United States (long before the Confederacy).

It should be noted that the president at that time was Franklin Pierce, a Democrat who strongly against the abolition of slavery.  In fact, Pierce is widely credited for causing the Civil War, since that is what Democrats do best - destroy things.

In any event, the northern states kept raising taxes on agricultural goods, which were the specialty of the southern states.  Since representation in Washington, D.C. is based on population, and blacks only counted as 3/5ths of a man at that time (thanks entirely to Democrat laws), the South was sorely underrepresented and was basically far out-voted in Congress.  Thus, the North was able to do pretty much as they pleased, and it pleased them to put most of the financial burden of the federal government on the South.

Furthermore, northern industrialists lobbied for price controls on agricultural products they needed as raw materials.  This placed a further and egregious economic burden on the South.  This led to fist fights in Congress and a lot of very hard feelings amongst the States, with the South rightly claiming the North was enjoying great economic times at the expense of the South.

Ultimately, the South set up a boycott, refusing to send vital raw materials to the northern Robber Barons.  The northern Democrat Yankees naturally couldn't believe anyone would stand up to them, and decided if the South wouldn't sell, they would take by force.

A group of US Navy ships challenged the blockade at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in a raid to steal shipments of agricultural goods.  Being attacked by US forces led the southern states to secede from the US and form their own union, called the Confederacy.  This in turn led to three years of horrific war in which half a million men died, the US Army committed mind-numbing atrocities, and an entire culture was laid to waste.

Abraham Lincoln, racists and evil tyrant, signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery - only in the South - not because he thought slavery was bad, but he wanted to undermine the southern economy and make it impossible for them to fight.

To put a finer point on it, it should be noted that not one single slave was brought from Africa to either the US or the Caribbean by the Confederacy.  That was done entirely by British and American vessels, and to a lesser extent by Spanish and Portuguese vessels, as well.  It should also be noted that the genocide of the American Indians was carried out entirely by American troops.  Many of the tribes sided with the Confederacy, believing freedom would benefit their causes against the US, as well.

So, as we survey the death and destruction being caused by the Progressive Left and the Democratic Party today, we should remember that it is nothing new.  These same ideologues have behaved much the same throughout the history of the US.  Hate and violence have been their signature for nearly 200 years.

One reason why knowing history is so important is the power it gives us to discern who is telling the truth when it comes to events such as Charlottesville.  Given that the GeezerMedia and the violent protesters are supportive of or supported by the Democratic Party, and given the vile history of that party in the past, we can place a greater burden of proof on them to convince us that "white supremacists" and "neo-Nazis" instigated the violence.  After all, it is the political left in the US which has caused so much grief for so many people for so long.

And no, I don't like the Republicans either.

We Don't Get Fooled Again

Edward Bernays

Those mean, nasty, horrible white men who formed the basis of the The Enlightenment should be disavoiwed immediately.  It was they who concluded that everyone has the right to express their ideas and opinions.  It was they who decided that all humans were equal in basic humanity.  It was they who dared to posit that no human may own another.  It was they who committed heresy by stating that government was evil and must be severely restricted.

What terrible, evil white men they were.

The American Civil War was not about slavery.  That issue was decided a long time before and the practice was being phased out even at the time of the war.  The Civil War was about the right of people to do away with government when it no longer served the people - an idea set out in the Declaration of Independence written by that nasty, filthy, horrid white man, Thomas Jefferson.

In fact, Abraham Lincoln was a terrible racist.  He despised black people and didn't want them in his pearly-white nation.  If you don't believe me, listen to his own words on the topic.  His plan was to ship all Africans back to Africa, and the nation of Liberia in Northwest Africa exists today because of Lincoln's efforts.  Furthermore, slavery still existed in the northern States long after the slaves were freed by fiat in the Confederacy.

The delicious irony here is that the violent, radical Progressives in the United States worship the evil, nasty white man Lincoln, while a man like Donald Trump, who has said nothing racist that I can find in the public record, is reviled and the embodiment of darkest evil.

If I have a point, which admittedly is rare in these rants, it is that of all the races on Earth and throughout time, it is the white race which established the philosophical foundation of human rights, and it is the Progressive Left that seems to selectively chose their facts in support of the House of Jell-O they call an argument.

Now, if you've been reading my posts over the past year, you know I am no fan of Donald Trump.  I think he's nothing more than a reincarnation of P. T. Barnum.  He's a showman and a marketeer [sic].  I firmly believe his mental pool is hardly deep enough to wade in, much less dive.  However, I will say that his comments regarding the Charlottesville riots, not the GeezerMedia comments on his comments, are reasonable and likely true.  From my perch 10,000 miles away, it looks to me as if there were dirty hands on both sides, and that the "authorities" acted and reacted with a clear agenda of supporting the violence and spinning the outcome against Trump.

Honestly, I don't think Trump sees skin color.  To him, all people are green, as in dollars.  He does nothing that isn't first calculated to enrich himself and his family.  His scale for weighing the value of a human being is the size of their bank account and his ability to empty it into his own.  While being prejudiced on economic grounds, I do not believe he is racist.

What I do see in the wake of Charlottesville is a carefully calculated and crafted narrative that was set in place well before the events in that city last weekend.  The chorus is too well rehearsed and the words too well polished to be spontaneous.  The weeping TeeVee mouthpieces, the feigned shock, the carefully scripted monologues are all far to clean to be honest emotional reactions.

The chorus began its shrill keening before the events had even ceased that night last week.  They ignored the facts that "authorities" backed off, the right-wing protesters had permits and the left didn't, and the herding of the right-wingers through a gauntlet of violent anti-speech activists was a set up to encourage a clash.

I do not believe the man who drove his car into the crowd was a right-wingnut.  He was a carefully crafted plant, whether knowingly or not, activated specifically to make sensational headlines.  And the ANTIFA group has a well-established history of violence across the country wherever conservative groups gather.  The fact that ANTIFA is supported by Barack Obama and George Soros is the subject of an entirely seperate argument.

There is no doubt that at least some of the organizers of the right-wingnuts wanted to draw a vocal crowd of anti-protesters to attract media.  The protest certainly would not have gotten the attention of the entire hierarchy of Washington and the GeezerMedia without some kind of tension.  A peaceful protest draws no flies.

It is clear to me, though, that as soon as the right-wingnuts pulled a permit for their protest, the wheels of dissent sprung into action.  Seeing an opportunity, the puppeteers organized an anti-protest, paid the participants and activated the driver drone.  The entire event was orchestrated for the sole purpose of damaging Trump, even to the point of sacrificing lives in a black magic ritual to give it extra power.

That the GeezerMedia flat refuses to actually quote Trump, and instead is hell-bent on putting their own narrative on the event in a synchronized symphony of hate is quite enough proof to me that I am right.  This kind of thing is precisely why I walked away from a fairly successful career in media.  It happens, and has happened many times since the Second World War.

The best rule of thumb to protect ones self from this kind of media mind control is to notice that all the outlets are speaking with one voice.  When you see that, you should know immediately that something is up.  They all have the same script from on high.

We will likely never know the entire truth behind this, or any other related events, but I guarantee with every ounce of my professional knowledge and instincts that the story you are seeing is completely fabricated.  Hell, even the foreign media is harping from the same song book, which is not really surprising since global ownership of media mirrors US ownership.  Perhaps Russia Today and Xinhua are a bit more moderate, since they see the obvious control mechanisms at work.

If you side with either the Left or the Right, you are probably not reading this rant.  Most of the folks who come here are liberals in the truest and oldest sense of the word.  But if you are one who identifies with the manufactured Left-Right spectrum, then take a moment to open your mind just a tad and consider that you may be a victim of highly sophisticated propaganda.  If you can do that, then quickly dash over to this link and read Edward Bernays' book Propaganda.  Do it quickly before the programming overtakes reason again.

Though I have no truck with Trump, I cannot sit idly and watch this fiasco.  I must attempt to reach those who believe the hogwash coming out of their home "entertainment" centers.  It is a rare opportunity when the brainwashing is so obvious and open.

Hey, if you really hate white men, then at least don't be fooled by one of the most pernicious men who ever lived: Edward Bernays, a nephew twice over of Sigmund Freud.

When Pride Becomes Destructive

Over the past month or so, most people living in the West have heard of, encountered or maybe ever participated in a Gay Pride parade.  They are almost unheard of here in the East, because homosexuality and other sexual aberrations (yes, that is the correct word) are not generally tolerated in public.  In fact, open displays of affection between anyone other than husbands and wives are thoroughly discouraged here in the Republic of Indonesia.

Before the SJW reader gets its (gender-neutral English pronoun) panties all in a bunch, let me explain something.

I grew up and have worked in the entertainment industry all my life.  I have encountered, worked with and socialized with just about every permutation of human being you can think of.  I have hugged, kissed and held hands with other men.  I have rarely, if ever, taken offence at what others choose to do, so long as the participants and observers are consenting adults.  I really don't care what people do in the privacy of their homes, or in establishments where everyone knows and consents to whatever may happen inside.

In other words, within the sanctity of one's personal realm, I have no say nor investment, except when and where I so choose.

However, I take issue with public events where non-consenting individuals may be subjected to sights, sounds and experiences they do not want.  It is a form of assault to subject passers-by on public thoroughfares to things they would not willingly seek out.  A human being cannot be forced to partake of something they find abhorrent or distasteful without their consent.

Now, for Gay Pride parades.

I know all about them.  I have helped arrange and stage them.  I acted in a play years ago about the Stonewall riots, playing a "straight" cop who ultimately "converts" to homosexuality (it was a comedy).

If you aren't familiar with Stonewall, on June 28, 1969, a group of homosexuals rioted at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, in New York City.  At the time, homosexuality was illegal and police staged regular raids in the area, arresting just about everyone on suspicion of engaging in homosexual practices.

For my part, I side with the rioters and against the State, since the bar was well-known as a "gay" bar and anyone going there knew what they were likely to see and hear and experience.  As long as nothing lewd or lascivious took place in the public sphere where innocents could accidentally see it, I am all for those folks having a fun time.

In my opinion, it is not the place of the State to legislate morality, nor to tell anyone what they may not do in the privacy of a residence or private business.  Furthermore, I personally don't have a problem with people of the same sex showing affection for each other.  I would rather see tenderness than murder and mayhem any day.

But...anyone who has attended a Gay Pride parade in the past couple of decades knows that public displays of affection are just the tiniest tip of the iceberg when it comes to these events.

These parades put on public spectacle some of the most decadent behavior, costumes and practices known to Mankind, from imitating sex acts of every description to whips, chains, spikes, clamps, plugs, beads, paddles, and pretty much anything else one can imagine.  Many of the costumes are unsanitary at best, and expose that are best left to the imagination in public areas.

In fact, Gay Pride parades have devolved into hedonistic displays in which the participants actively try to out-shock each other in what they are willing to do in pubic.

Back in the day, these events were fun and funny.  I can think of one gay bar that had a precision marching kazoo band.  Another had a float with (fully clad) drag queens putting on their best performances.  Some organizations simply had everyone in matching costumes marching down the street in solidarity with their fellow participants.  There were likely local politicians and celebrities riding in convertables practicing their Princess Wave, including the winner of the Parade Queen contest.  A really daring show might have been a Dom displaying his/her/its prowess with a bullwhip, but that was nothing worse than what one could see in the rodeo parade, as well, including the leather chaps.

In the past decade, however, these events have taken a decidedly darker turn.  Nudity, flogging, even some blood sports are on full display, disregarding any social mores or decorum.  There is no concern for innocent passers-by, children or delicate sensitivities.  The parades are no longer fun, but rather challenge on-lookers' limits of tolerance and taste.  They have become shocking displays of depravity that openly flaunt things that are much better left in private.

Personally, I have seen it all and it doesn't shock me much anymore.  I am, though, rather bemused by the term "gay pride," since I associate pride with excelling at a skill or talent or project, not for who (or what) I choose to have sex with.  Copping an orgasm hardly seems like an achievement by any means, since it is a biological function of which most human beings are capable, and being completely subjective, there is no way for me to judge the quality or intensity of anyone else's.  So what is there to be proud of?  It's a bit like "eating pride."  So what?

The thing about pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior in public is that the public eventually pushes back.  At some point, a boundary is crossed which offends the vast majority of average people, and it is at that point that the push-back goes quite far in the other direction.  In the effort to "normalize" every conceivable behavior, the ultimate result will be a new prohibition, where everyone gets punished for the excesses of a few.

While I truly don't care what you do for fun within the walls of your domain, there are limits to what I want to see in public.  I'm sure most people feel that way.  Seeing someone flogged, even if the recipient gets his/her/its jollies from it, is not something I care to see.  I empathize far too much with the pain and it makes me extremely uncomfortable.  I am sure most people feel the same way about a range of behaviors.

In the interest of propriety, we humans keep certain things private, if for no other reason than we don't want to offend others' sensibilities.  Ultimately, I am being selfish, though.  I don't want to get punished for the actions of others, and that is certainly what will happen at some point, as the parades delve off into truly offensive territory.

By all means sing, dance and invite everyone to the party, but make it a party that everyone wants to see.  It's just a matter of decorum and civility.

Circumlocuting Repetitious Circular Problems

Maybe I think too much.  Certainly something I've been accused of over the years.  I'm just a bit gob-smacked by the astounding amount of double-think people are capable of, though.

When I survey the various hot-spots and crises around the world (done daily for Twitter followers @RAdioFarSide), it seems so obvious to me that nearly all of them are caused directly by governments.  That part is not surprising, given the long history of humanity being abused to death by this unholy creation.  What is surprising is the way in which people continue to turn to government to solve the problems it creates.  What's worse, the solutions are even more egregious than the problems they supposedly remedy.

The entire Middle East quagmire is entirely caused by governments - whether regional ones bickering with each other, or outsiders imposing their agendas on the region.  From the Roman Empire to today's headlines, the region has been one long history of government meddling in people's affairs.

What's the solution?  Why, more government meddling, of course.  Whether it's the horribly misnomered "peace talks," or the Saudis killing everyone and everything in sight, every single issue in that region can be traced to a government program or policy or agenda.  So hey!  Let's keep asking governments to solve the problems!

How about Europe's immigration mess?  Here, governments have allied with private interests (the very definition of fascism, by the way) to uproot people from one region and transplant them in other region, with both groups having diametrically opposed cultures, lifestyles and philosophies (such as they are).

This little government gem of an immigration agenda has led to untold deaths, rapes, thefts, impoverishment, disruption, economic hardships, tax burdens, social service collapse, and destruction of thousands of years worth of cultural heritage.

What solution do people seek?  Why, more government, of course.  Surely, the evil bastards who caused the problems will have the ready solution that will make everyone happy - except for the obvious one of dissolving the extant governments and agencies, and jailing the complicity private interests.

Venezuela, China, India, the Koreas, Brazil, Argentina - you show me a troubled region, and I'll show you out-of-control government, and in most cases an alliance between government and some private interest (usually banksters).

Why is it that we humans, despite thousands of years of experience with these matters, continue to create governments and turn to them to solve the problems they create?  The very circular nature of the issue makes one dizzy.  How can we hold these two mutually conflicting ideas in our heads?  And why can't we extract ourselves from this obvious insanity?

For the most part, humans managed to slough off monarchies, which amounted to little more than privileged individuals demanding moral and ethical behavior from their subjects, while having no such limits on themselves.

We replaced the monarchies with democracy, which now gives us "elected" groups of people who act like monarchs while burdening the masses with yet more laws controlling morality and ethics.

The problem is quite simple, really.  Whenever money and power are concentrated, evil rears its ugly head.  The more money and power, the more evil.  It is a simple, linear progression and the outcome is as dependable as sunrise.

And yet - insanity is repeating the same miserably failed actions, expecting a radically different outcome.

Government, and by extension organized religion, which is nothing more than an older form of government, is provably and obviously the greatest evil ever unleashed on humanity - and we did it to ourselves.

Let's take two shining examples of this insanity at work:

Americans recently elected Donald Trump, and stacked the federal House and Senate with Republicans, hoping to clean up the past eight years of Democrat corruption and immorality.  Almost immediately it became clear that Americans had duped themselves.  As the grumbling grows, can you guess what the electorate is thinking?  Why, let's replace them with Democrats (again).  That will fix it!

Likewise in France, an overwhelming majority elected Emmanuel Marcon to clean up the mess left by Hollande (that has all but destroyed the national identity).  Almost immediately - even faster than Trump - the French have turned skeptical and even wary of their new president.  Naturally, folks are talking the next election to clean up the mess left by the politician elected to clean up the mess.

Perhaps an exerpt from a children's rhyme will illuminate the insanity better than I can:

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly;

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider;
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd to swallow a bird!

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider;
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

And the madness continues...