The Weekly Notes 2007
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Back to the Weekly Notes 2007 Archives Meltdown: I am having a struggle
with my internet service provide and website hosting service. That service is
provided by Earthlink. Up until now they have been no better or no worse than
any of the other outfits. Now they seem to be completely and willfully negligent.
I would not be a bit surprised to see them pull the plug on me without
warning. If they do, Wesoomi.com will disappear. In that case, please look
for me at Wesoomi.net. I am trying to get some backup in place, but it is not
easy finding an ISP. I will follow up on this next week, if I can. In the
meantime, I may not be able to maintain my two columns, William’s
Corner and The Gaffer’s Variety. I am currently giving all of my time
to establishing an alternative to Earthlink. The Water Wars: I am noticing the
unseemly bickering between some southern state governors over water. I have a
vision floating around in my head of a bunch of little kids with water
pistols squirting each other. In spite of the adolescent behavior, there is a
real problem involved. Even without a drought, we will be having a crisis
with our potable water supply. The drought merely highlights the issue. Like
most of our problems, this one can be traced back to the steady increase in
human population since the time the solutions we still use were effective.
The situation has changed, but the solutions have not. They are no longer
effective. This is also true of energy, transportation, and electric power.
Of all of these, the water problem is easiest to solve. All we need is a way
to convert ocean water into potable water. Would that the energy problem
would yield so easily. Canadian Oil: One thing that would
provide temporary relief to the energy problem would be to exploit the
Canadian oil sands. After all, Words: I like to look up words
and phrases and think about their meanings. Here is one definition of
cognitive dissonance from Microsoft’s Bookshelf. Psychology. A condition of conflict
or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one's beliefs and one's
actions, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat. I think our whole
culture is suffering from cognitive dissonance. There are massive
contradictions between what we do and what we pretend to believe. They are
everywhere, if we care to look. For example the notion that we can spread
democracy through the barrel of a gun. How about, we believe in free speech,
unless the speaker is a youngster. We don’t believe in torture, but
it’s okay to take those extreme measures so long as it doesn’t
happen in Medical Procedures: If it were up to me,
there would be certain medical procedures that would be available to all
people in Award: Now we are giving medals
to the children of people who were killed in war. I think that is silly. It
cheapens the concept of medals for real service. This has never happened
prior to our instant everything culture. Where will it end? Will we someday
be giving awards to the pets of people who were in a war? How about a metal
for good old Spot, the dog of Private Roger Young. Most people don’t
know this phrase from an old song. “The everlasting glory of the
infantry, was last deed of Private Roger Young.” I think it’s a
done deal. We are going to make war on Strike: This writer’s
guild strike in Chrysler: The union member agreed
to and signed a new contract with these people. I doubt that the ink was dry
before Chrysler announced the layoff of some ten or twelve thousand workers.
Sweet! I think this falls into the category of blatant betrayal. I predicted
this a while back. Take a look at my Weekly Notes of Back to the Weekly Notes 2007 Archives |