Zombie Tools Unite!

Well, here we are: one year post-Mayan-zombie Apocalypse.  If you look around critically, you could almost believe it really happened.  The past year has been one of vast, profound and subtle shifts in the direction of history.

Global power has been shifting, sometimes like a sloth and others like a leopard, toward the East.  Increasingly, Russia and China are dictating the ways and means of the world political and economic stage.  In recent weeks, China took the lead in our celestial backyard, as it landed a rover on the Moon.

Meanwhile, the US/UK/EU axis of evil continues to live up to its name, having been revealed (yet again over the past 45 years) to be spying on everyone on the planet, including itself.  For some reason, everyone was shocked, or feigning such for the cameras.  It was hardly a surprise, as anyone who has been awake and reading the reams of laws passed in the last few decades would know this system was at work.  Looks like we've all been Snowdened.

Anyone who thinks they have privacy after posting their life histories, scads of photos and hot chats all over the social media deserves it.  It's akin to taking out a billboard on Times Square and then being shocked that anyone recognizes you walking down the street.  Remember back in the old days when people used screen names?

The Brits added another mouth to its royal tax burden, and then began protesting the tax rates there.  Bit o' news, mates.  You're subjects owned lock, stock and barrel.  Fork it over or get rid of the ridiculous pretention of a royal family.  You're paying for the trappings of empire, without the empire.

Global warming continues to be the world's biggest non-issue.  Those who created extravagant business models based on social guilt keep trying to milk it, with movies, TeeVee and Olympic ceremonies pushing a dead issue, while temps haven't risen in 16 years, polar ice caps are growing and deadly winters are becoming the norm.  Liberal agendas always seem to blow up in their faces.  Ever notice that.

Speaking of which...Obamacare.  Nuff said.

Liberals are the biggest hypocrites to be found.  They blather on about "diversity" as long as they don't have to live with xenotypes.  They beat their breasts over "equality", as long as their chosen groups are more equal.  They jet around the globe and ride in limos and own massive mansions while droning endlessly on about the "environment".  Basically, a liberal is anyone who wants you to change your lifestyle so they don't have to.

Oh, and that whole Kuumbaya rubbish about humanity coming from Africa so we can all feel downtrodden because most African nations are so corrupt and full of thieves that they continuously destroy themselves?  Modern genetics has proven beyond a doubt that it is false.  Looks like most of us came from Australia.  G'day, mate! Kind of a weird poetic beauty to that idea.  The Aboriginals I know are way more cool than most of the Africans of my acquaintance.  Take Obama, for instance...

At least conservatives are blatantly open about the prejudices, greed and hatred of all that isn't incorporated.  I can respect honesty, even when both the message and messenger are equally despicable.

The whole damn civilization is fraying and frazzled, and covered stem to stern with bubblegum and bailing wire.  Can't say I'm sad to see it go.  It's kind of like gangrenous flesh - you've got to carve it out before the healing can begin.  It's just a horribly slow and painful process at the scale of a planet.

You'd think after 6,000 years of starting governments and then living to regret the idea very much, humanity would have learned.  It is apparent that we are a masochistic species hell-bent on operating in our own worst interests come what may.

At any rate, Aquarius continues to dawn.  The year of the yin wood green horse is coming up.  The numerical value of the coming year is 7, which a lot of folks call lucky.  Maybe we'll get lucky and squeeze the big boil on the rump of the world and start the recovery for real.

In the immortal words of Shakespeare, "Jail all the bankers!"  Or was that Sven Joergensohn?  I get the two confused.

Ladies And Gentlemen, The Presidents Of The United States

Special Note: Prior to my usual tirade, a note on blindness.  I've been telling folks for a couple of years now that I have begun 'seeing' sounds.  If you remember the movie "Daredevil" with Ben Affleck, then picture the effect they used when we would hit something with his stick and there'd be echoes off of objects.  It's a lot like that, only my resolution is not that good, but enough to see obstacles.  One problem.  it works best when things are dead quiet, and even better if dark too.  I'm lucky in that I still have about 20% of my original vision, but it seems that my brain is making adjustments for the lost capability.  I drive my wife crazy by practicing this new skill at night by clapping my hands sharply and looking at the light show, then opening my eyes and seeing how accurate the echoes were.  At 6' to 8', I'm off by about 6".

At any rate, seems there's a group of researchers who have confirmed this effect, and there's even a test to see if you have the ability.  Needless to say, I passed the test.  Look for the video link at the bottom of the article.  Since this effect does exist, it stands to reason that sighted people can develop it, as well, with a conscious effort.  It is trainable, as I can attest.  Could be a very handy skill for night navigation, and even in the day for 'seeing' things that are hidden or not obvious with the eyes.

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We're going to go way out on a limb and call the US election next week.  The winner will be...

Omittma Baromneyak

Now you may think we're being cute mixing the names of both major-party candidates, so that whoever wins, we're right.  Well, of course, that's part of it, but we have a deeper meaning.

We suspect that BOTH candidates WILL win.  In other words, a co-presidency...at least for a time.  We predict a series of 'natural' (nature provides the greatest plausible deniability) disasters will cause the elections to be postponed, and to quell the outcry, both men will be given equal status as 'leaders of the (ahem) free world' until such time as things can be re-arranged.  Say 2020 or so.

This would seem to be the ideal solution, since presumably the extreme views of both men would be cancelled out and the consensus view would hold sway.  It would allow the 'ring masters' to placate the greatest number of people with one fell swoop. The 100% of idiots who keep telling pollsters they want either of the two leading idiots would all be happy.  Those of us who are aware of what day it is, on the other hand, would know that the end has finally come and that nothing can stop the train at the other end of the tunnel now.

How would this work, you ask.  Well, it's quite simple actually.  Many corporations have a president and a CEO who are not the same people.  You could divide up the foreign and domestic duties between the two and they would have to concur on military matters, which does look like it would lead to a lot of soul searching in the White House in that respect.

One could take over the West Wing and the other takes the East.  The Oval Office would become the Parabolic Offices.  They could share the nice, new underground bunker underneath.  There might be some conflict over the dinner guests, with George Strait duking it out with Beyonce, but the Chief of Staffs could hash that little problem right out.

Heck, we could even start to refer to them as the Harlequin Twins and Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder could go out on a Legends Tour (like the Rolling Bones) and promote racial harmony because of the amazing developments in DC.  Next thing you know, dogs and cats would be living together!

Could it happen?  Why not?  They (the pit bosses) tried the direct route in 2000, and that led to an open wound that some people still can't get over, including Sweet Al.  If both won and became co-presidents, it would make everyone happy, especially if 'yin' got the foreign stuff, and 'yang' got the domestic end.

Balance and harmony would break out everywhere!

It is an elegant solution in its simplicity, and one which we are certain the pit bosses have considered if not implemented.  Are there signs that they have implemented this 'final' solution?

Let's see...there's Hurricane Sandy.  Now mind you, this 'hurricane' has 75mph sustained winds.  For those of you who have never experienced a hurricane, winds like that are FUN!  I've sat out in 75mph winds and watched the rain fall sideways.  We're not talking end of the world-type stuff here.  If you blow on the palm of your hand as hard as you can, that's about 75mph wind.

Oh sure, there may be downed power lines and uprooted trees, but it sure doesn't justify evacuation notices stating 'if you do not survive' and estimates of $3 billion in damages with the East Coast becoming a vast swamp.  Sorry, doesn't work like that.  The storm is moving at 13mph, which means it will blow over in about 3 hours and the skies will clear and all will be as it was, minus a coupld of trees in Central Park.  Be sure and check out the eye.  It's really cool.

The amount of fear and hype being generated over the least little things these days is rather astounding.  During hurricanes, they always point to Katrita, but fail to mention that New Orleans is 9-feet lower than the sea, or that Houston never even got rainfall from the other storm.  But millions of people panicked and clogged hiways for hundreds of miles and emptied stores.

So maybe fear and panic are tools, since 'they' seem to have this pathological desire to keep people in a state of stampede for the stupidest things.  There can be no other explanation than the resulting chaos provides endless entertainment to 'them'.  We here on the Far Side refuse to entertain someone without being paid...well.

Could 'they' be creating a hurricane right now to initiate problem-reaction-solution (Hegelian Dialectic)?  Sure.  A hurricane is driven by heat.  Using microwaves to heat the ocean, one can stir up an otherwise minor storm.  Then, to steer it, you simply heat of corridor of the atmosphere with radio waves that would draw the hurricane in much like a magnet would draw iron fillings.  All of this can be done using advanced radar-generating spacecraft, or ground stations in combination with orbiting reflectors to focus and intensify the waves.

In fact, we suspect that we saw a test of the system earlier this year, in which a template - in this case the storm track of Katrina - was uploaded to the system and a new storm (Isaac) was made to follow the predetermined path.

Can it control earthquakes?  Well, doggone it if Fukushima didn't serve a lot of goals and policies of the Western empire and hit the exact weakest point to create the most amount of damage over the longest possible term.

We're just sayin'...

If we add up all the behaviors of the various governmental groups over the past 20 or 30 years, it would certainly appear that something BIG is about to happen that may or may not be out of the control of whatever group is responsible for all this.  You've got the Far Sight Institute and HalfPastHuman going off about rocks in space.  You've got the 2012ers jumping up and down about the Mayans and Egyptians.  You've got the Neo-Mammonic televangelists stirring up end-time fears.

And then you've got folks like us here at Life on the Far Side.  We get these weird 'spidey-sense' things, kind of like butterflies in your stomach, but based on anticipation rather than anxiety.  It's a lot like that feeling you had as a kid on Christmas Eve when you laid in bed waiting for the next morning.

So time for 20 Questions:
Is something BIG about to happen? Yes.
Is it man-made or natural? Probably both.
Will humanity survive? Of course
Will things be better after it? Let's hope so.
When will it happen? Soon.
Is all this storm/EQ stuff part of it? No, this is dress rehearsal.
What is the best/worst place to be when it happens? No place/any place.
What are my chances? About the same as doing 100mph on a city freeway, and just as preventable.
Will people panic?  Of course.

People always panic when things change.  As a race, we become accustomed to and crave routine.  We can't stand it when there's a major upheaval in our lives.  We'd even point out that most of the problems in a disaster is people panicking instead of rationally and coolly evaluating the situation and taking appropriate action.

Could all of this come to pass?  Why not?  The government media (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fix, PBS) have gone out of their way to cast this election as 'too close to call', making 2000 a dress-rehearsal.  Co-presidents would make the most number of people happy, at least in the short-term.  Hell, Romney is right handed and Obama left.  They could even hold hands while co-signing Emergency Executive Orders!  What a sight that would be!  Black/white, left/right ruling together.

So, anyway, might want to steel yourself for the fun that's coming soon to a planet near you.  We should see a big push in the near future to slice the world into three parts: North/South America and Greenland, Europ/Iceland/Africa, and China/Oceania/Australia.  This would allow the Secret World Government in Antarctica to rule the world with minimal effort, with all the dirty work taking place in the immediate aftermath of whatever is coming.

Should we panic?  Hell no.  You can rest assured, based on history, that 'they' are doing the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time for the exact wrong reasons.  Since 'they' go through life with severely myopic vision, 'they' never see the train coming.  'They' always react to perception rather than reality.  Just keep your wits about you and take reasonable precautions, like all clear-thinking people do all the time.

It's not the fall that hurts, it's the sudden stop at the end.  Take all necessary action to control where you land, and like that crazy Austian guy (but we repeat ourselves), enjoy the fall.
TEOTWAWKI isn't always a bad thing.

The Meaning Of Life?

For some reason, I woke up this morning with Cindy Lauper's "She Bop" running rampant through my brain.  Why in the hell THAT would be assaulting my morning mind, I can't say.  I couldn't shake it.  I immediately set about playing Handel's Water Music to drown out the inane pop anthem.

But it did set me to thinking, which should terrify anyone regularly reading this space.

The 70s and 80s in America were a time of great banality.  The arts had become vast wastelands of mediocrity that served only greed and narcissism.  True, there were stand outs like Elton John and Bruce Springsteen, alond with a handful of superior movies, but they serve as the exceptions that prove the rule.

The era produced such banal fads as Pet Rocks, glam rock and Michael J. Fox.  It was a period that all great societies seem to go through just before they implode and crumble into the dust from which they came.

In pondering how this inevitable trend operates, I came to the conclusion that at some point, major societies reach a point of such affluence and decadence that two things happen: creativity devolves into hacks for hire, and ultimately, no one wants to do the work.

Many (many) moons ago, there was a cartoon in Penthouse magazine that has been etched into my mind, even deeper than Miss June 1984.  It was a six-panel in which an artist starts out making his paintings in a bare single-room flat while wearing rags.  By the final frame, he is surrounded with admirers, wearing the finest togs and his paintings are now nothing more than his signature.

This was a profound commentary on society in general, and the arts in particular.  The rise of self-indulgent art, combined with the complete lack of discerning taste on the part of the public, is the final phase before the crash and burn.  It is as if the culture has reached the point where it has exploited everything it can get its hands on, and has turned on itself in a final desperate attempt to buy up the last dregs of esthetics.

The other side of this is the fact that some amount of wealth and affluence has reached pretty much every level of society.  At this point, everyone wants to be in the leisure class and no one wants to do the work necessary to build and maintain the mundane foundation of the society.

I mentioned Michael J. Fox earlier, and he is a perfect example.  He made a film called "The Secret of My Success," in which he is the proverbial man-on-the-make.  He slick-talks his way into opportunities and ultimately lands in a pile of money.  Now image an entire society of people just like that.  Everyone buys a cheap Armani knock-off and prints up some cards and becomes an entrepreneur without going through the prerequisite steps of becoming an expert in something.

It's at this stage that the entire culture is run by middlemen and brokers.  The problem with that is no one is producing, and eventually, no one is buying, since no one has money from the Big Deals they didn't make.

In the midst of this orgy of lopsided capitalism, folks forget about things like education and manufacturing and producing.  Instead, all creativity is focused and expended on facadism: it all looks like Town and Country magazine on the outside, but on closer inspection one finds that it's all just pirated copies and cheap reproductions.

At some point, all of this leads to an entire generation without prospects or hope.  There is no real business left, and the scraps that remain have so many barriers to entry that they can't possibly surmount them.  They are the seeds of destruction, the impoverished and forgotten that are the by-products of over-hyped lifestyle chasers.  Education has devolved into little more than puffed-up babysitting.  There are no savings or inheritances from the older generations to fertilize them.  There is nothing left that hasn't already been exploited to exhaustion.

What's worse is that they are stuck with the tab for the high living decades that preceded them, and they never even got a taste of the wine and roses.  All that's left of the bowl of cherries are the stems and pits.

And so the inevitable happens.  The decadence turns to decay, and ultimately the entire thing collapses.  What's worse is that the older generations try to cling to the old ways through the use of brute force.  Dictators spring up by popular will or apathy, who try to maintain the illusion of prosperity at the point of a gun.  Finally, basic human instinct kicks in with the overwhelming desire to be left the hell alone.

At this point, the immovable object meets the irresistible force.  In the clash, the remaining infrastructure of society is utterly destroyed, and from these ashes come opportunity and creativity, as people rebuild and rethink.

For ancient Rome, this process took the better part of 1,000 years.  For America, it was only a quarter of that.  China seems hell-bent on achieving it in a single life-time.  The cycle is speeding up at an alarming rate with seemingly no one learning anything new to remediate the problem.  At the same time, it's becoming a global, rather than regional phenomenon.

It's exactly like bacteria in a Petri dish.  The colony expands until the limits of the environment are reached, and then the entire system collapses.

The only solutions anyone seems to come up with are strict rationing and controls, but that simply implies that someone is in charge of the doling out and measuring.  Inevitably, all that happens in this case is that the watchers become mired in corruption and ultimately they start carving off bigger chunks for themselves until they are lamp-posted by the rabble.

It seems like an impossible dream that we, as a species, will learn to restrain ourselves, rather than always looking to a parental authoritarian system to force us into compliance.  We don't appear to have learned a single lesson from the past 20,000 years of experience.  No matter how civil and genteel the society, at some point someone notices others getting a fairer share of the goodies than they are, and it quickly becomes a greedy free-for-all, as soon everyone is scrambling to snatch up a bigger pile of goodies than the next guy.

Sometimes I wonder if our species wasn't exiled to this planet until such time as we had learned to behave ourselves.  If that's the case, then it seems that we are failing miserably, since we are not only not improving, we seem to be back-sliding into the muck.

Perhaps it will take a global collapse of unprecedented proportions for everyone to learn all at once that we are going the wrong way.  In the past, there was always an escape valve; folks could pick up and move somewhere else and start over.  With a global collapse, though, there will be no life unaffected.

Perhaps that is the subconscious origin of the current slavering rush to apocalypse.  Somewhere deep in the collective id, folks are pushing to see the final Big Poop, so that we can start anew, hopefully a bit wiser for the wear.

It does seem, though, that at the end of every Age, there is a massive upheaval that fertilizes the future.  Let's hope that someone is taking really good notes, though, so we can all copy off them before the exam.