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June 27, 2005:
Neo-Nazis:
Who owns your home? If you answered, "I do," you could
not be more mistaken. According to the most recent ruling of
the Supreme Court of Jesters, your government owns your home.
With this ruling, any gang of political hacks who wants to can
take your home away and give it to their business associates
to use in private business however they please. All they need
do is claim that the community will gain by the seizer. They
need not prove it, they need only claim it. They must also pay
you what they decide is fair market value. This takes the concept
of eminent domain out of the public good arena and puts it squarely
into the political graft and payoff arena. Your home is not your
castle after all. Your home is on the block for whatever crook
can make the best payoff.
For sure the court was split five to four along the classic
lines with the Orwellian majority on one side and the constitutional
conservatives on the other. The majority ruling was written by
the master screw -the-people power crony, John Paul Stevens.
The minority opinion was written by Sandra Day O'Conner. She
said, in effect, there is no way that our founders intended anything
like this.
Eminent Domain is simply the right of a government to appropriate
private property for public use. Normally this is done with compensation
to the owner and then only in very rare circumstances. Forget
all of that! Now, your property is fair game for any political
hack who wants to profit by stealing it. What next? Well, the
mad King George wants to put more people like Stevens on this
panel of Jurists? Happy 1984! No need for thinking anymore. Big
brother will decide what's good for you. Orwell's world is upon
us.
Peek-a-Boo:
The pentagon is now gathering personal information on 16 year
old kids. They collect things like GPA, telephone numbers, and
email addresses. It's to make military recruiting easier. Don't
bother to hide! We know who you are! We know where you are! We
know your innermost thoughts! They are also forcing schools administrators
to provide relevant information. This is legal under a secret
provision of the No Child Left Behind Act. It's really okay though,
because Don Rummy says we will handle the data with care. Sure!
Bolton:
How rare and embarrassing! I never thought I would see the day
when I would agree with King George. However, Unlike the left
wing liberals, I like Bolton. He blusters and blunders for sure,
but he agrees with me on the UN. It's a room full of rabble that
needs to hear the truth. They are not even do-gooders. They are
fake do-gooders squabbling and debating over trivia while the
world crumbles around them. Tell it like it is, John!
Why?
Why is it that people shake their head to the side when they
are saying something they want us to believe and up and down
when they are negating something? In almost all the cases I have
observed, the body language contradicts the statement. What fools
these humans be!
Storage space:
We never have enough. Here is a technique I have tried. It works
for the short term. Simply clean house and throw out everything
you have not used in five years. Junk it, give it away, sell
it! For most of us, that will recover close to half of our storage
space. Think how much fun we'll have filling it up again.
Democracy:
Sometimes I think the democracy in the United States is nothing
more than the lull at the bottom of the pendulum's swing rather
than a warp. I suspect our democracy is a fluke. The normal progression
of government is like a pendulum from anarchy to fascism to anarchy
to fascism, etcetera. There is some confusion about this because
anarchy and fascism often masquerade under different names. Anarchy
is sometimes called parliamentary government or interim government
of a state of flux. Fascism has often masqueraded as Communism
and Socialism. One time democracy fell out as a fluke. The pendulum
got twisted somehow. Now it's flopping around in a system called
democracy trying to recover it's natural cycle. We have crazies
at both extremes trying to help it get back to the normal cycle.
Let's hope they fail.
What happened?
Most of us start our careers as caring people. We care about
something and we start doing it. Then we have some success and
begin to come into power. When we get to the beginning of power,
we start making compromises. Finally, our whole life becomes
about covering our rear ends. That is what happens. That has
been my total experience with bureaucracy. All of the bureaucrats
I personally know about started out as good, well intended people.
What happens? Is it something in the water?
Reality:
Everyone has a mental model of the way the world is. To the extent
that our model matches reality, our life will be less painful.
The more removed our model is from reality, the more painful
our life will be and the harder will be the lessons. We cannot
shut out parts of the real world simply because we find them
distasteful. The part of the world we ignore will lay in wait
for us. Eventually, it will roll over us.
Puzzles to Ponder:
Could we work out some kind of better mobility for handicapped
people? A person who is partially paralyzed or missing a leg
should be able to go anywhere and do anything, at least in the
social sense that the rest of us can, without the humiliating
embarrassment of inconveniencing the rest of us. He may not be
able to play football, but he should be able to go to a football
game by himself. And, he should be able to go to the counter
and order up a cool draft. The stuff we have now for handicapped
people is cumbersome, difficult to use and often painful for
the user. Can't we do better?
And nobody lived happily ever after.
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