Reality Check

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to pause and reflect."
-- Mark Twain

I find Mark Twain to be one of the genuinely great thinkers of the past three centuries.  I like him because he was able to put very complex ideas into succinct and folksy terms - none of this high-fallutin' Descarte or Kant kind of rhetoric.  Just plain, simple language that carries a truck-load of meaning.

I have lived by the quote at the top for most of my adult life, and it has rarely failed me.  I say rarely, but as I sit here, I can't think of a single instance when it failed.  I absorbed it and made it my own with a more metaphoric image: When you see everyone running one way, you should probably run the other way.

I have lost friends because I thought the whole Global Warming thing was bunk - and that was in the early 90s, before ClimateGate or folks like Piers Corbyn or Ben Davidson.  I have pretty much always thought that there is an alternative history, such as espoused by folks like Joseph P. Farrell and Graham Hancock, that was more satisfying and more accurately reflected the available facts.  The one and only time I have ever voted was when Ross Perot ran in 1992 (I believe like George Carlin that NOT voting gives me the right to bitch), and that is about as close to mainstream thinking as I can remember coming.

So when I say that I have serious reservations about Donald Trump, it comes from a long line of contrarian thinking.  If all these folks are running in his direction, there is very likely something deathly wrong here.  I said it about Obama back when he was still a patron saint and I ran a big risk of being beaten by fanatics, and I am saying it now about The Don.

To say I am a contrarian doesn't mean I am Young Bear in Little Big Man.  I don't ride horses backward or wash with dirt and dry off with water.  That is an emotional condition.  I come at it from a reasoned position, though whether my reasoning is sound or not is up to you, dear reader.

Reason #1: One of the major problems with the US government (and many others) is that it IS a corporation, run by corporations, for corporations.  The last person who should be at the helm is a corporate man who sees everything as a business problem needing a business solution.  Governments, at least real ones, are organic institutions that protect natural human beings from such dangers as soulless, conscienceless, godless corporations, whose sole existence is to subjugate humans and suck the natural and economic life out of them.  Trump said it himself, "I have never gone bankrupt - I have never."  Sure, he hasn't, but what about his CORPORATIONS, and more importantly, the PEOPLE who worked for them?  See, his artificial lifeforms have died, taking many organic people with them, but he has never been hurt by it.  Strike 1.

Reason #2: Trump's wild-ass plans will likely never come to pass.  And he knows it.  It all sounds great to a bunch of organic human beings struggling against decades of corporate subjugation, but it is all clap-trap.  Trump can't slow down the corporate exodus to Mexico and beyond, nor can he slap import taxes on the products from it, because NAFTA and soon enough TPP will already be law, and he will have to repeal such laws through a Congress that is bought-and-sold, which will never happen.  Furthermore, how does he plan to fund a massive deportation effort with a Treasury that is broke and has been since 1913?  This is all pie in the sky.  It sounds sweet to out-of-work organic human beings struggling to save their families, but do you honestly think a corporate man like Trump will kill Obamacare and prevent the Pharmas from forcing their swill down everyone's gullet?  Or will he call upon his years of experience to negotiate deals that look good to Average Joe, even as it slides the knife between the sternum and rib number 6?  Strike 2.

Reason #3: Folks seem to be flocking to Trump because he appears to be the US equivalent of Putin, but there is a world of difference between the two.  Putin's power and appeal come from a man who is educated in international law, a former leader in the KGB, a man deeply knowledgeable of his cultural roots.  Trump, on the other hand, is a hair-spray cardboard cut-out of Americana.  He has no discernible cultural background.  He has no demonstrable education in law of any kind, other than what he has picked up of local property regulations running his corporations.  In fact, other than his TeeVee personality, Trump doesn't seem to have any substance to him at all.  The deepest things he's ever said would make pond scum seem positively profound.  In fact, the most apt metaphor I can muster is that Trump reminds me of those little water sprites that literally run on the skin of a pond.  In all fairness, I have tried to find some deep insight from the man, but frankly I come up dry.  Strike 3.

I see Donald Trump as the next Ronald Reagan...all fluff and media, but very little depth and meaning.  I have even seen the word "teflon" applied to Trump, meaning we are seeing a clone of Reagan already fitting out his chair in the Oval Office.

Trump is no Putin.  Putin is a man of learning and inner strength.  Trump is a product of the media.  Putin operates from a long view of history, both Russian and global.  Trump can barely spell "history".  If America is trying to compete on the Manliness Scale with Putin, it will be a long row to hoe.

The one saving grace that I can truly enjoy about Trump is that he may save the US from Political Correctness and Feminism.  He is unapologetic about his views and doesn't appear to care who he offends.    For that, I give him a large lump of credit.  I am all for anyone who can lead the US out of its long, dark teatime of the soul, as Douglas Adams so wonderfully named it.  For America to begin healing itself, it must cast off the burden of Political Correctness, because frankly, if you breathe, someone will be offended by it.  Who cares?

Is it enough to get me excited about Trump?  No.

Trump is a symptom, not a cure.  He is the natural outcome of years worth of inorganic slime dominating the American culture (such as it is).  He is more likely to create the systemic abuses of the Reagan Era that America is still suffering from, than to correct the course of the "ship of state".

The natural follow-up question is, "Who do you think will win?"

Honestly?  Hillary.  Why?  Two reasons.  In American politics, there is a trend to keep the party in power going for 12 years, no matter how much damage it does.  Also, however much teflon Trump appears to have, that Battle Axe appears to have many more layers than he.  I mean, all the dead and dying surrounding Hillary, all the scandals and rumors, all the slime and silliness, and yet people still take her seriously.  A Trump/Hillary contest should be endlessly entertaining, but still not enough to drag me out of my voting hiatus.

I prefer to complain.

And be a contrarian.

So I can say, "I told you so."

Mark Twain, Where Are You Now?!

Samuel Clements, a.k.a. Mark Twain, is in my estimation the greatest of all American writers.  He was a brilliant satirist, humorist and teller of tales.
In 1899, the Phillipines were in the midst of a war for independence from Spain.  The US, always ready, willing and able to slaughter anyone they damn well feel like, jumped in to the fray so it could take the Phillipines away from Spain and make it a personal colony.  To this day, it's still under US control as a US colony in the South Pacific.


Intending to point out the very absurdity and insanity of war, Mark Twain wrote 'The War Prayer' towards the end of that war, but it wasn't published for another couple of decades.


Even from the grave, Twain's words could not be more true...
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It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams – visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation – "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting.

With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal," Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said

"I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause)

"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.-------------

Warm This, Baby!

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?
-Mark Twain

A frequently overlooked bullet in the head of global warming theories is Mars. The Martian atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide, yet no one would argue that the planet is in any danger of overheating. By comparason, Venus has around 98% carbon dioxide, while the Earth has only 0.04%.

That's right, look at those numbers again. Our two nearest neighbors have in excess of 90% CO2 in their atmospheres, while Earth has one-half of one percent. If Earth is in any danger of a run-away greenhouse effect, like that found on Venus, then we only need to add SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES MORE CO2 to achieve it!

In fact, Earth's most dangerous greenhouse gas is...are you ready? Water vapor. So, we need to ban water immediately in order to control the imaginary overheating of the atmosphere!

The overheating is imaginary, since the mean global temperature of Earth has not risen significantly in over 15 years. In fact, in some places it has dropped. If you are currently in the Northern Hemisphere, you are probably shivvering, up to your keister in snow, praying for some global warming about now.

None of these facts even contemplates the events of ClimateGate, which the media have effectively buried. Here in Indonesia, almost no one has heard of it, which is why I take the time to educate anyone who will listen. In fact, the whole thing is a scam, perpetrated by factions who would charge us money to breathe.

The scam is so horrible and so evil that those involved should be tried as traitors to the entire planet and summarily hung, if found guilty of their crime.

The crime has affected the lives and property of people worldwide. It has been used to justify some of the most draconian and pernicious social manipulation ever conceived. It has also been used to create massive financial fraud and has destroyed the integrity and validity of scientific inquiry itself.

Because people have been trained by poor educational systems and media propaganda to accept wholesale the word of 'authorities' and to not pursue their own lines of inquiry, or even believe their own senses, the entire planet has been led down this path without hesitation. To paraphrase Hermann Goebbels, the lie repeated often enough becomes 'truth.'

I've had people argue that global warming may be a myth, but its aims are good and the anticipated results are necessary. To which I reply, NOTHING founded on falsehood can achieve a good result. Once peole awaken to the fact that they have been lied to, they typically react with an even greater swing to the opposite behavior.

If the goal is to reduce pollution and to clean up the environment, then that is sufficient in itself. It does not require the use of enormous lies and legal manipulations to achieve it, because the goal is valid in and of itself. Certainly, the efforts of people to reduce acid rain, lower emissions and prevent toxic wastes from entering the eco-system, begun in the US in the 70s, has resulted in better air quality, cleaner environments and less free toxins (fluoride in the water aside) for all.

However, the extreme to which this initial effort has been carried has resulted in an evil effort to control entire populations and manipulate people into giving away their wealth in order to achieve something that is not true. It is no more valid than snake-oil salesmen or Brooklyn bridge contracts. Under any set of law, fraud invalidates an agreement.

Global warming hysteria is tantamount to 'the boy who cried wolf.' By using the veil of 'science' to perpetrate this fraud, the validity and integrity of all scientific inquiry has been called into question. If this is false, then what else has been manufactured for the same purposes? Should we now throw out all results and begin afresh? Which parts of scientific research has not been manipulated to some occult end?

No apologies have been forthcoming for such rubbish as the British Met office posting on its website back in October that this would be one of the warmest winters on record, and that Britian has seen the 'end of snow,' at least for the memories of those now living.

No apologies for fear mongoring, such as shrinking Himalaian glaciers (false), melting ice caps (false) and austerity measures under the color of law that have caused immeasurable suffering on whole populations.

No apologies from Al Gore, who won Academy Awards and Nobel Peace prizes under false and misleading pretenses. Nor has he aplogized for his own personal enoumous 'carbon footprint' in the name of raising the false alarm. A classic example of 'do as I say,' if there every was one.

We have been had. We have been manipulated and cowed into accepting a falsehood with the promise of a utopia that can not and never will exist. The Earth is more than capable of regulating its temperatures and atmospheric contents, as it has done for eons, without Mankind raising so much as a fuss.

That we, as a species, could possibly have such a massive effect on a planetary scale while pursuing our daily lives is hubris at its most outrageous extreme. While the burning of hydrocarbons can have unpleasant local effects, such as smelly air and environmental toxins, it can not reach the scale of planetary disaster. Yes, the world has 'shrunk' in the past 100 years, but not THAT much.

It seems to me the best thing we, as a species, could do now would be to pause and take inventory. How much of what we think we know has been manipulated for some covert purpose, and how much is real knowledge? It seems that after 200 years of breathless scientific and technological advance, we owe it to ourselves and our progeny to step back for a time and review.

If such a massive fraud as 'global warming' could be perpetrated in such a relatively short time, then how much of physics, history and biology have also been manufactured out of whole cloth? This singlualr incident calls into question that whole thing, and if information is power, then who has the real information, because it belongs to all of us, not the select few.

The Greek mathmatician Eratothenes measured the distance to the Sun and Moon very accurately around 2,500 years ago. He was off precisely 10%, in fact. The reason was he used Egyptian surveys to determine the radius of the Earth, and thus the distances to Sun and Moon. The Egyptian government had manipulated their surveys with a 10% error in order to collect more taxes, thus is wasn't until Lelande nearly 2,000 years later that an accurate measurement was obtained.

In other words, science was set back two millennia by the greed and lies of governments and 'authorities.' Where would our civilization be now had the Egyptians provided true and accurate measurements of their lands? The Catholic church suppressed Galileo's work demonstrating the Earth was not the center of the Universe, but meerly another insignificant rock in space, thus setting back scientific inquiry on the grounds of religious dogma.

How much might was have achieved in the past 25 years, if we had not wasted so much time and effort on a lie? How many advancements were quashed because of misguided grant funding going to a massive fraud? How many more resources will be wasted on perpetuating this fraud, before we can resume real scientific inquiry?

The emails exposed in ClimateGate demonstrate that the actors within this fraud were well aware of what they were doing. Their comments show that they purposefully manipulated data, hid facts and outright lied, in order to obtain funding and support occult purposes.

There needs to be a Nurmberg trial on a global scale to try and punish the perpetrators of this fraud. The punishments must be severe enough to discourage future efforts to repeat this sort of evil. And the inquiries must reach to every level of the fraud, not just the useful idiots at the forefront in the media, but at the highest levels of society.

Myths, legends and religious dogma are fine for those who willfully adhere to them, but to enforce at the point of a gun those fairy tales on every living soul on the planet rises to the level of crime never before seen in history.

We are being charged for water, which covers 75% of the planet. We are being charged for food, which grows just about anywhere. We are being charged for breeding (marriage licenses and taxes). And they are trying to charge us for air through the auspices of 'global warming.' How many more natual and free functions of life will we pay for before we tire of this rubbish?

The time has come to stop believing and adhering to these vile lies. People should throw down their gauntlets and stare down the perveyors of this garbage heap of lies and falsehoods. Its time to take back our birthrights, which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unhindered and unfettered by the greed and averice of controlling interests.

There are a thousand untried solutions to every problem, but we have been hoodwinked into accepting only those which line the pockets of vested interests. The solutions which keep the power and rights in the hands of the individual have been buried under mountains of steaming lies.

We have only to remove the hood over our eyes. We are complicite in keeping it in place. We are willfully following the false leaders, though we have been manipulated from birth to do so. However, that is no excuse to continue. We have the right and the duty to throw off the yoke of tyranny, no matter in what form it comes. Civilizations will remain intact, even if the paradigm by which we measure it changes.

The only 'authority' we should acknowledge is that of the Universe itself, for it is the immutable Laws of Nature that created all that we know, and which will determine the time when it will cease to exist. All else is a mirage.

'Global warming' and 'climate change' are brands which are sold to us through media and manipulation. Simply by recognizing it for what it is takes its power away. Demand real information and truthful dialogue. There are far more pressing issues to deal with and we should be applying our energy and resources to those things, and not to chasing phantoms.

Think free, be free.