Archive for the ‘aliens’ Category
“AS FOR SELF-DECEIT, MOST PEOPLE FIND IT AS ESSENTIAL FOR SURVIVAL AS AIR.”
My computer blew up recently. That’s not really why I haven’t posted though. Long story short, over the past year there’s been a sea change in how I view the world. The title above (from “Forever Odd” by Dean Koontz) sums it up. I think this change of perspective is a good thing, something I already knew on many levels. In some ways it’s something that has perplexed me all my life. For good or for ill, my parents instilled in me a strong aversion to lying from an early age. I mean, the logic seemed impeccable to me, in order to get along with each other shouldn’t the truth be the foundation? So I innocently went through my childhood believing what was told to me. And in retrospect some kids (and grown ups) told me some real whoppers.
And of course it was not unusual for me to be accused of lying when in fact I was telling the truth. Still, I felt these were the exceptions, not the rule. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I really understood that many adults lied routinely. And even then, the scope of the problem eluded me for decades. I knew people lied, I knew self deception was real, but I still routinely expected most people to tell the truth most of the time. I had a reasonably good opinion of humanity.
This is no longer the case. I now think most people’s lives are a snake’s nest of lies, and most people aren’t even really cognizant of them. It all started to fall apart when I moved to Iowa in 2016. I quickly discovered that my old friend of 40 years was a liar, cheater, and thief. As I said to her brother at the time, “she must use a spreadsheet to keep track of all her lies.” And upon review I’ve realized that a lot of people I’ve known for a long time are, shall we say, remarkably dishonest. What does this all mean? It means I need to be ever more careful to be honest with myself, and to pick my friends more carefully. Easier said than done, but I’m trying.
In addition to my personal life, does this have any global lessons? Or global perspectives? I think it does. While engaging in my world view revision, I came across this: In-Group Cognitive Bias – NeuroLogica Blog. In a nutshell, people are very tribal by nature, and very prone to believing nonsense about people who aren’t in the tribe. And since self-deception is so innate in humans, it makes it much easier for “leaders” to get their tribal members to swallow nonsense. So in essence this new world view has made it clearer to me why so many people are easily propagandized by religion or politics. My today’s theory at least. I find this incredibly depressing.
And this is why my blog has limited appeal. I’m consciously trying to avoid any in-group bias, so my appeal is limited to say the least. Almost everyone belongs to an in-group of some sort, and most are quite fervent in their beliefs. Oddly enough, a huge part of these beliefs is believing the other groups are deluded. True enough, that’s the best sort of lie, a lie that’s true … but leaves something big out. The fact that they too are deluded. In different ways and different formds, and some delusions are obviously far more dangerous than others. But the difference is in intensity, not in kind. And even that distinction can be meaningless if the result is horror.
For example: Democrats Love Saying That AR-15s Should Only Be Used On Foreigners. The title pretty much sums it up, Dems love to decry the horrors inflicted on America by assault rifle wielding Americans, but think it’s perfectly reasonable that they be used in other countries. George Takei (whose opinion I formerly respected) sums up this craziness exactly: “Crazy thought, but those 20 million AR-15s now in this country could sure arm a lot of Ukrainians.” Mr Takei, what’s going on in Ukraine is a nightmare, adding more weapons is going to just make it worse. American AR-15 owners need have no worries, the US is sending plenty of other weapons to Ukraine and doing its best to avoid even the possibility of a diplomatic solution.
So what’s to do? I will continue to post articles that I think are interesting or illuminating. This is a favorite recent one, the Chilean Navy UFO. (image above.) This picture was taken by an infrared camera on a Chilean Navy helicopter in 2014. Ten minutes of seemingly inexplicable footage was taken. They turned it over to the Chilean government’s CEFAA Committee (Committee for Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena,) yes, Chile too has a government bureau charged with investigating UFO reports. The CEFAA studied the video for two years, and concluded they had no idea what it was. Then they released it to the public with this statement:
“The great majority of committee members agreed to call the subject in question a UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) due to the number of highly researched reasons that it was unanimously agreed could not explain it.”
So that settles it, right, a rock solid film of an inexplicable flying object! UFOs are real! Wait, wouldn’t this then be world news? Wouldn’t everyone have heard of it? Not quite. Literally within days of releasing the video it had been positively identified by internet sleuths … as an airliner. In fact exactly what airliner and airline flight it was was determined. Read the whole story here: The Chilean Navy UFO.
Kinda sums up the whole UFO mythology. People that believe in such simply can’t or won’t look for actual solutions and convince themselves there is a mystery where there is none. Governments might as well set up agencies to investigate fairy sightings. UFOs are just a modern version of ghosts or fairies. As I have said before “The Middle Ages never ended, we just have cooler stuff.”
Oh well, more links in the next post. Which will hopefully be in days instead of weeks. Have a great weekend everyone.
Copyright © 2022 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Copyright unknown, probably Credit: CEFAA. Claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Arguably an historically important image, and there is no other such image available to illustrate this sighting.)
AFTER THE DELUGE
Well, I didn’t expect flash flood and tornado(!) warnings in NYC while visiting, I thought tornado warnings were an Iowa thing. No tornadoes here in NYC fortunately, but yes, they did have one in New Jersey. Yeesh. I spent much of my childhood in New Jersey, I sure don’t remember tornadoes ever being an issue. Above is a normally busy freeway near where I am staying in NYC. The car in the center was trapped by flooding in front and behind. Behind two partially submerged cars are visible. These folks got to walk home through pouring rain, heaviest rain ever recorded in NYC. More than 40 people dead in the US northeast, hell of a storm.
This of course was the tail end of Hurricane Ida. Killed more people in the northeast than it did on the gulf coast. More people living here, less prepared for this kind of extreme weather event, though that’s just my speculation. What’s not speculation is the huge increase in extreme weather events over the past fifty years: Climate and weather related disasters surge five-fold over 50 years, but early warnings save lives – WMO report. What would save even more lives is if nations took serious measures to combat global warming, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. International cooperation for international good is only a fantasy no matter what governments say.
Covid really made this clear. There’s a great article in the New York Times about it. Since it’s paywalled, I’ll sum it up. Basically it points out that to date there has essentially been no international cooperation in fighting a global pandemic, and essentially every nation including the world’s richest nations only took care of their own, leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself. Well, almost none. The one thing they did do was cooperate to make sure the international finance system kept running smoothly, so while most people on Earth suffered from Covid one way tother, the rich continued to get richer.
In other words, when Reagan once speculated that humanity would pull together in the face of an alien threat, he was laughably naive. Covid is most definitely a global alien threat, and humanity is most definitely not pulling together to face it. Even crazier, the cost to do so would be trivial and easily affordable, and the cost of not doing so will be staggering. This bodes very ill for future global threats, in fact by letting Covid run rampant, there’s a good chance it will mutate into a much more terrible threat. Fun times. Read the article if one can: Opinion | What if the Coronavirus Crisis Was Just a Trial Run?
And the global media isn’t helping. Most of it’s not really even journalism anymore, just clickbait infotainment. When not actually repackaged government/corporate propaganda. Critical thinking not welcome. In this vein, I came across an article on the Today site. I’m not familiar with the site, but superficially it appears to be a “legitimate” news and information site, not some sort of Onion knock-off. They are reviewing a documentary from the History Channel: History Channel doc reveals key discovery in Bermuda Triangle. First of all, the idea that a legitimate news site would take the History Channel seriously is bad enough, but here’s the first two paragraphs:
“It’s a mystery that has endured for 76 years in a fabled area that many sailors and aviators have long said contains supernatural forces we don’t understand.
On Dec. 5, 1945, 14 airmen flying five World War II torpedo bombers called Avengers took off from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale on a routine training mission over the Bermuda Triangle and were never seen again. The U.S. Navy even sent a Martin Mariner search plane out at the time to find the missing aircraft, and that plane and it’s crew of 13 also disappeared.”
Um, how to say this, all bollocks? The only mystery is why anyone thinks there’s a mystery. Millions of people including countless aviators and sailors travel through the Bermuda Triangle every single day without giving it a second thought, let alone invoking supernatural hogwash. The disappearance of Flight 19 was well investigated and well understood at the time, and only became a “mystery” in the 1960s when an author invented “The Bermuda Triangle” and simply made up all sorts of details about Flight 19 to make its loss seem spooky. Ending up with a blatant lie, the Martin Mariner caught fire, crashed, and exploded shortly after takeoff. The Martin Mariner’s not-so-affectionate nickname was “The Flying Gas Tank,” so catching fire and exploding was a not uncommon occurrence. No cause of the fire and explosion was ever determined, but this was 1945 and the black box wouldn’t be invented for another decade. There’s no reason to assume anything supernatural occurred, it was just another plane crash in an era where planes were nowhere near as safe as they are today.
End rant. Well, I’ve got more links, but I guess that’s enough for now. I also had an epiphany a week ago that completely changed my worldview. Still processing it all, but I suppose it’s worth writing about at some point. It caused me to lose all desire to drink for one thing, which in and of itself is a very strange feeling. Life, you grow and then you die. Though frankly the growth part seems optional for many people. C’est la vie. Have a great weekend everyone.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Freeway near NYC. Credit and Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.)
ONWARD THROUGH THE FOG
Oh boy, getting ready to move so blogging has been a low priority. I would have moved already, but I needed to have a storage space for my stuff built first. LOL. Yes, every storage space near me was full with a waiting list. Then I found one that was in the process of building a new building so I rented a storage space that hasn’t been built yet. Fortunately they are making good progress, a few days ago it was just a concrete slab, drove by yesterday and the building was nearly complete. I can only hope they are working through the weekend. Looking forward to hitting the road.
Stuff keeps on happening in the bizarre imaginary world modern America has turned into in front of my horrified gaze. One of them is illustrated above: Mike Lindell made an insane election conspiracy diagram that has to be seen to be believed. It’s bizarre to say the least, looks like something a deeply unmedicated schizophrenic would come up with. (No ableism intended, just couldn’t think of a better way of saying it.) And then there’s this: Trump Supporters Insist Far-Fetched 7-Point Plan Will Get Him Back In Office. At least this one has the benefit of being easy to understand. The first three steps are fantasy, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. Save the date though, August 13 is when Trump claims he’ll be back in the oval office.
In other American news, statues of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson are being taken down in Charlottesville, North Carolina: Charlottesville set to remove Robert E Lee statue that sparked rally. These were two “heroes” of the Confederacy, so they never should have been installed on public property in the first place. These were men who took up arms against their nation because they wanted to keep human beings as (rapeable) property. Hardly people to memorialize. That’s the lost cause myth though, the idea that the Confederacy was some sort of noble state’s right cause crushed by northern aggression. It’s high time all glorification of the Confederacy was removed from public spaces, so this is progress.
A good article that looks into the history of the religious right’s opposition to social change of any sort, linking the Scopes monkey trial to today’s attacks on Critical Race Theory: Experts beware: America may be headed for a Scopes moment. The main takeaway, it’s a long article, is that the religious right always wildly misrepresents things like Evolution and Critical Race Theory in their attacks upon them. Worth a read. Oh, and my observation, gee, the very same people who insist that creationism should be taught in schools so children can understand the controversy … don’t think that CRT should be taught for the same reason? Basically the bottom line is the religious right only want their narrow interpretation of history taught in schools, they’d dump the teaching of evolution in a heartbeat if they could do so.
Basically America isn’t a modern civilized educated country. And it’s not just the religious right: QuestionPro Survey Finds Two-Thirds of Americans Believe in UFOs. No surprise since even the Pentagon has gotten on the UFO train: The Pentagon Lies About UFOs – But Not Always For The Reasons You’d Expect (Updated). There’s as much evidence for aliens on Earth as there is for the existence of angels and demons. People still believe in them too: Did a Demon Appear at Biden’s Speech? And ‘Prophet’ Claims Biden Has Demonic ‘Serpent Eyes,’ Defends Trump’s Election Win. Even the BBC is promoting nonsense these days:The BBC Indulges in Bizarre Pseudohistorical Stonehenge Speculation. Sigh.
In foreign news, a group of foreign mercenaries made their way into Haiti and murdered the country’s acting president in his home: Haiti president’s assassination: What we know so far. A nightmarish event for one of the world’s poorest and most long suffering nations. I wish I had an answer, but I do know that death squads and political assassinations are the epitome of evil. The two Americans involved should be flown back to the USA, and executed on the tarmac on live TV. Alas the world’s rulers for the most part have no problem with death squads so long as they’re killing the people they want killed. If killing people solved problems the world would be a paradise. Sadly I don’t see it stopping anytime soon, in the USA at least the peace and antiwar movement has been so sidelined and delegitimized by the powers that be that it might as well not even exist.
Oh well, since messed up North America appears to be today’s default theme, a good article on the North American heat wave: The North American Heatwave | NeuroLogica Blog. While one can never say with certainty whether a weather event is related to global warming, the odds that an event this extreme would have occurred without global warming are vanishingly small. The well funded denier lobby will continue their work though, and global warming will continue to pick up steam.
Lastly, some good news from Florida’s Surfside condo collapse. First though, I saw an observation about this terrible event that I thought was right on the money, paraphrased: “The surfside condo didn’t collapse because of terrorism or some natural disaster, it collapsed because of shoddy construction and maintenance, internal rot basically. In so many ways a metaphor for modern America.” Yerp, our infrastructure, education, and health care is the embarrassment of the developed world, but our military could blow up the world a dozen times over! Couldn’t defeat the Taliban … but I digress.
Yes, the good news, a Surfside condo survivor was found! His name is Binx. He’s a cat: Cat missing in Surfside condo collapse found alive; death toll climbs to 79. He lived on the ninth floor and it’s not exactly clear how he escaped with his life, as he was just found in the vicinity of the ruins. May well have jumped to safety, cats can and do survive falls from great heights. Must be nice knowing you don’t need no freaking ladder or landing pad or parachute, just jump!
Hope all are having a good weekend. Next post, Afghanistan. Looks like America’s role in this sheetshow is finally over. Stay safe and cool everyone.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: The Pillow Guy’s whiteboard about how Trump is still president. Used without permission, but claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Hell, I’m sharing his wisdom with the world, people will see this illustration and flock to Trump’s defense! How could he object?)
LIFE HACK: BE EXTREMELY RICH AND HAVE AN ARMY OF LAWYERS. PLUS OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY.
It’s been a strange few days. Here’s a good one: The ‘Biblical view’ that’s younger than the happy meal. Basically the idea that the Bible prohibits abortion and says life begins at conception dates from about 1980. Before then evangelicals felt the same as everyone else, it’s not a person until it’s born. And now that’s completely changed, largely driven by politics. People love to think they are making up their own minds about things, when in fact most of them are easily manipulated into believing all sorts of things. A problem that’s getting worse as the sciences of advertising and propaganda learn new ways to manipulate people constantly.
OK, a nice nature story. (Snort.) The ‘ecological hate speech’ developed around wildfire. Basically the logging industry and their subsidiary, the US Forest Service, have totally controlled the narrative about forest management. And lo and behold they’ve created a widely believed narrative which justifies maximum logging at terrible environmental cost. Greed is the most powerful force in the Universe. Read the article for the details, but it’s hella depressing. Especially how Trump fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Speaking of politics: House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy threatens to strip members of committee assignments if they join the Jan. 6 investigation, reports say. We can thank the Dems for weaponizing this, I predicted such after the Dems voted to deny MTG her committee appointments. Congress was already an ineffective partisan farce, now it’s sunk deeper into irrelevancy. Though to give them their props, sometimes they get things right: House Votes to Remove ‘Grotesque’ Confederate Statues from Display in U.S. Capitol. The Confederacy was the greatest crime in American history, their revolt cost a million freaking lives. And they revolted because they wanted to keep human beings as property because of the color of their skin! No sheet the leaders of this treason shouldn’t be on display in the U.S. Capitol.
And the National Guard is apparently now guns-for-hire, a junk-car billionaire is paying for the deployment of 50 National Guardsmen on the southern border: Willis Johnson, Junk-Car Billionaire, Bankrolls Kristi Noem’s Border Deployment. This might technically be legal, but it certainly shouldn’t be. I think it’s safe to say that the astute reader could see how having the military undertake missions at the behest of billionaires could lead to major problems. Usually slippery slope arguments are bogus, but in this case, no, I don’t want Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos deciding where the US military gets deployed. I don’t think anyone does.
Sigh. A few missed holidays. June 30th was Asteroid Day. A UN sponsored day to spread awareness of asteroids and the risks they pose. June 30th was chosen because the Tunguska Event occurred on June 30th, 1908. This was a ten to thirty megaton explosion in the sky over a remote part of Siberia. That’s like a really big nuclear explosion, vastly larger than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fortunately it was over such a remote area that maybe only three people were killed. And it was so remote that it wasn’t scientifically investigated for decades. And even when it was investigated, well, there had been a huge explosion, but no impact crater! What the hell?
It was quite the mystery. And in fact (no surprise here) lay speculation included aliens and other such nonsense. We now know that a rocky asteroid (or possibly a comet) about 100 yards in diameter heated up and exploded in the atmosphere before hitting the ground. Similar to the smaller Chelyabinsk meteor explosion in 2013. Here’s a good article about it: 1908 SIBERIA EXPLOSION: Reconstructing an Asteroid Impact from Eyewitness Accounts.
And other Holidays. July 1st was Canada Day, the Canadian parallel to America’s Independence Day. Celebrations were a bit muted because a third mass grave near a residential school was found: Nearly 200 unmarked graves found near Canada residential school. Hard to celebrate a nation that forcibly put children in essentially concentration camps for purely racist reasons. And the Brits are upset that some statues of British monarchs who were on board with this were toppled. Fork them.
Well, I hope all are doing well these strange and terrible days. Canada is burning. The ocean caught fire. Strange new forms of Covid are arising. The Pentagon says angels and demons “can’t be ruled out.” OK then. Stay safe, gentle reader.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: View from Kirensk, two seconds before the explosion. (400km, 250 miles away.) Painting © William K. Hartmann. Used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
UFOS, AZ AUDIT, NECROPHILIA, AND VULTURES
What can I say, I try to cover all the bases on Doug’s Darkworld. UFOs first and again. Came across this: How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers. A nice overview of how a handful of UFO true believers got UFOs back into the news. Interesting for the sociology and politics involved. Fascinating to me how many people seem to think that the Pentagon’s putative interest in UFOs means something. The Pentagon is probably one of the most unreliable sources in American history, that people invoke its authority when it suits their narrative is pretty telling. The good doctor goes into the actual details of the current bloom of UFO nonthingburger: UFOs Are Back – And They Are Still Nothing. Nothing to see here folks. I’d love for aliens to be real, when I was 14 I thought Chariots of the Gods was amazing, proof aliens are real! I’m a long way from 14.
And true believers is definitely it. I’ve gotten into a few debates with UFO believers the past week; it’s like debating 9/11 Truthers, evolution deniers, or AZ audit proponents. It becomes painfully clear there is literally no argument that will sway them. All I need is evidence and reasonable argument to sway my beliefs. I’m not hearing that. Examples: But pilots see them! Um, pilots are magically immune to the cognitive and perceptual biases that make humans terrible observers of unexplained aerial phenomena? Like sasquatch, at this point the lack of a single clear UFO photo is more than a little troubling, it’s damning.
And AZ audit supporters. Their main argument at this point is “If there’s no problem, why be afraid of an audit?” That’s pretty much like saying: “If the police searched a home and found nothing, why would multiple repeat searches be a problem? What have they got to hide?” Um, because the searches are disruptive, destructive, and destroy one’s property value? The same with the AZ audit (and more are on the way,) the 2020 election is already the most audited election in US history, and so far nothing has been found that is evidence of widespread fraud. This “audit” is both destroying people’s faith in election integrity, and giving the GOP cover to pass ever more restrictive voter suppression laws. Scares me, should scare anyone who likes living in a constitutional republic.
Moving right along: Morgue worker arrested after giving birth to a dead man’s baby. National Enquirer? Weekly World News? The Onion? Nope, for realies. The reader of a squeamish nature might want to skip this paragraph. I did confirm it. Sperm cells live up to five days after being, um, released into the wild so to speak. So as long as he wasn’t too long dead and had ejaculated before his death, perfectly possible. There was another case where a fellow sued for divorce because his white wife had a mixed race baby. He lost, turned out she had been faithful, he had routinely had sex with prostitutes on his way home from work, and then had sex with his wife. And a little fella hitched a ride so to speak.
The things one learns on Doug’s Darkworld. Necrophilia is a fetish. A fetish is being sexually aroused by something other than primary and secondary sexual attributes of a potentional sex partner. IE liking their genitals, chest, hair, butt, etc … not a fetish. Turned on by feet (the most common,) hats, or dead people … yeah, fetish. Fetishes are incredibly common, more than half the population has a fetish. And the vast majority of them are perfectly healthy. It’s only when taken to extremes that pathology sets in. In the case of this woman for example, necrophilia is an open secret in the funeral industry, but she was clearly out of control.
And vultures were circling my house this afternoon! That’s a sign of good luck, right? And Googling, I was right! Vulture Symbolism & Meaning (+Totem, Spirit & Omens). Yeah, no, in common western parlance, vultures are a sign of imminent death. Though often humorously. I checked, the cat and the housemate are still alive. I still seem to be kicking. I blog, therefore I exist? Joking aside, the vultures were wandering up and down the shore of the lake. It’s been freakishly windy even by Iowa standards for days. Maybe dead fish were blowing ashore? The trees are waving outside my window as I type. Hope it ends soon. Reminds me of this story: A Wind is Rising. One of the first science fiction stories I ever read. Sticks with me to this day. And just now noticed it was published in the year I was born. Good omen or bad?
Stay safe everyone, have a great week. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Vultures over my house. Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.)
UFOS ARE THE ANGELS OF OUR TIMES
So let’s dive into this. OK, say military authorities decided that Sasquatch was real? Or Nessie? Or Leprechauns? Or Santa Claus? Would that make the idea that any of those was real more likely? No. Military authorities historically are often wrong, and often lie. The idea that the military is taking UFOs seriously, if that’s even what’s happening, is simply an argument from authority. It goes downhill from here. Here’s another layer of special pleading. There is zero evidence of alien intelligence in the Universe. SETI has tried all sorts of promising approaches, and found nothing. And there’s zero evidence on Earth of alien probes, no crashed ones have ever been found, no one has ever taken a good picture of one. Nada.
But, but, the military has all sorts of special sensors and stuff! These are infrared motion pictures for example, how many of those are around? Well, quite a few I am sure. I digress. Any student of the history of military sensing technology knows it’s a long history of false alarms and mistaken identifications. There’s all sorts of ways birds, bugs, and all sorts of other stuff has been mistaken for something other than what it is. The flying rods nonsense is an example of people not understanding what new technology was recording. It’s not that hard to find experts pointing out there’s nothing unexplainable in these infrared videos. I mean, this story has been popping up repeatedly for years.
That doesn’t sell though. In the Internet Age, especially, for every site trying to promote sober analysis (like this one I hope,) there are dozens preaching to the choir. UFOs sell, and have for decades. Humans want to believe. The same way they want to believe in angels. Many still do believe in angels. It’s a comforting belief. And people believe that UFOs are real for the same comforting reasons. Wouldn’t it be nice if intelligence such as ours could not only exist far beyond our level, it could actually be benign toward us? Or least indifferent. The people who believe in Ancient Aliens certainly demonstrate the former.
Myself, I think the evidence indicates that aliens do exist, but in a far darker form than people imagine. A topic for another post. In other news, what a mess Washington is now, sheesh: The congressman from Hell is a symptom of our rotten political system. Good but depressing read. In personal news I socialized for the first time in a year yesterday. The cat got all the shrimp, the guests carried away the leftovers, and what they didn’t take my housemate ate in the morning. I’ve been missing this? Joking aside, good times. Hope all are having a good week. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Sunset on Mars. Credit: NASA. NASA pics are public domain so long as not used to imply endorsement. NASA does not endorse Doug’s Darkworld.)
THROUGH THICK AND THIN
Well, I have about a dozen stories that might make a blog post if padded, but I hate that. So I’ll just dive right in and see how many I can fit in one blog. First off, the good doctor is on point today. I used to be anti-GMO and pro organic, but I have since realised these are basically ideological positions, not science based ones. There certainly are many problems with modern industrial farming, CAFOs in particular are an ecological blight. The solutions are complicated though: EU Scientists – Organic Farming Less Sustainable.
As an aside, I notice that while left leaning folks have no trouble understanding that there are all sorts of religious organizations, think tanks, groups etc. who are promoting pseudoscience and nonsense in support of their ideology/religion (or simply out of greed) many leftists don’t seem to understand there are plenty of left leaning organizations doing exactly the same thing. Ecowatch leaps to mind, but there are plenty of others. Selling snake oil is as old as civilization and utterly indifferent to politics and ideology. Reason and science are required to figure out reality, not pseudoscience and bad logic. That’s what people will come up with though if one points out for example that glyphosate is a remarkably safe herbicide that is harmless to animals. Nope, glyphosate bad, Monsanto bad, end of discussion. Sorry not sorry: Glyphosate and Behavioral Economics. Convince me otherwise.
Oh well, I just lost another friend or two no doubt? What else is in the news: Research shows the need to address the root cause of far-right extremism. Basically they determined that sexism and misogyny is a big part of the foundation of far right extremism. Makes sense to me, I’ve been saying that sexism is the root of all the other isms for decades. Once one has decided that half the human race isn’t really human because of their genitals, an idea so stupid it hurts the head to think about, why it’s easy to think the same about any other group of people based on superficial characteristics like skin color, national origin, etc. Sadly I don’t see this misconception changing in the west anytime soon because the Abrahamaaic religions are founded and based almost entirely on the idea of male superiority.
Speaking of genitals and civilization: Another gender reveal party explosion, at least no one was hurt this time: Explosive gender reveal party shakes houses miles away. Yes, there have been deaths. Frankly, the whole concept of gender reveal parties strikes me as somewhere between absurd and downright creepy. I mean, having a party to celebrate what genitals a fetus has? Really? Why would anyone care, what genitals a kid has reveals exactly zero about them. Frankly this whole obsession with other people’s genitals strikes me as disturbed. Who looks at a married couple and wonders if they have the “right” genitals? Who goes into a bathroom and worries that someone in a stall has the “wrong” genitals? A lot of Republicans apparently. (I’ve wondered if GOP stands for “Genitals, Other Peoples’.”) Another reason the aliens lock their doors when they fly by Earth.
The Trumpers’ election loss meltdown/fantasy continues: ‘It’s almost like insanity’: GOP base continues to lash out over Trump’s defeat. I’m pretty sure that fervently believing something for which there is zero evidence for, and tons of evidence against, is insane on some level. I have no problem with the GOP tearing itself apart at Trump’s bequest. Hell, voting for people who are pretty much insane seems to be the future of the GOP: QAnon Candidates Are Winning Local Elections. Can They Be Stopped? Why stop them, give them all the rope they want.
In the same vein (GOP fantasies,) there’s this: As economy spikes, Republicans are still waiting for the ‘Biden depression’ that Trump predicted. Turns out that Trump’s claims that the economy was going to crash if Biden was elected were, well, bullshit. Who would ever have guessed? And a final bizarre Trump fantasy: Trump administration thought they’d be memorialized in statues for doing such a great job negotiating with China. In some ways this is one of the weirdest things about Trump and his cult, they actually think he was a fantastic president. I’m sorry, at best Trump was an unremarkable president up until Covid, and his response to Covid was catastrophically hundreds of thousands of dead Americans incompetant.
And Trump’s Covid misinformation legacy lives on, because of vaccine resistance invigorated by Trump’s downplaying of the virus, it looks like herd immunity for the US won’t happen: Thanks to Republican Anti-Vaxxers, the U.S. May Never Reach COVID-19 Herd Immunity. Sorry Mr Trump and followers, but being the world’s largest driver of Covid misinformation doesn’t get Mr Trump any statues.
Lastly, so many police shootings of coloured folk. America has a problem here, and until we acknowledge that, we can’t fix it. There’s nothing wrong with police, or the concept of police, but police culture in the US needs to be reformed … and we need to stop using police in situations where other professionals would be better utilized. In any event, here’s a police training event where police are taught that not only is killing people no big deal, they’ll have great sex afterwards.
I have a hard time seeing this as a good thing. Police should be trying to save lives, not get off on taking them. Stay safe and have a great weekend everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image. A tweet, attribution in image, used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
LIFE IS ABOUT FINDING A SAFE PLACE TO REST
Life is about finding a safe place to rest. Working is easy, for most of us. Finding a safe place to rest, trickier. Nowhere is every really fully safe of course, cosmic debris can get one anytime, anywhere. Still, most of us in the west have it pretty good. However, even if one finds a safe spot from outer demons, the inner ones remain. Maslow didn’t account for them. Kafka tried.
I notice a lot of people are writing “One Year of Covid” posts. True enough I suppose. I wondered when I first began to be alarmed, and I’m pleased to say that by late February 2020 I was already very concerned about Covid and blogging about it regularly. Maybe pleased isn’t quite the right word, relieved? I was right! (“Extremists are only valuable to have around when they are right.” — Anonymous.) I’m an extremist in the global disaster sense, I knew early on that Covid was a big deal, that every precaution to avoid getting it should be taken, and I urged others to do the same.
A year later, what’s the deal? About 750,000 Americans have died of Covid, about ten million have long term health deficits from Covid. Yeah, the official death toll is just over 500,000, but the excess deaths, deaths above the normal death rate, are about 50% higher. And Covid is the only thing that accounts for it. 3rd or 4th worst mass death event in US history, and it’s still not over yet. And not likely to be anytime soon, Covid is mutating rapidly and it’s already clear that vaccines will need constant updates. The flu from hell is here to stay.
Amazingly enough, people have normalized Covid in many ways. It’s not like a war. October 1918 was the deadliest month in US history, dwarfing all else. Yet few Americans know that, forgotten in history, because they died of the flu. The same now, just under one in every four hundred Americans dead, vastly worse than 9/11 (250 times worse) … and Covid is just background noise in the media. Life goes on I guess. Some people still think Covid is a hoax or exaggerated. It’s their social knowledge. Social knowledge is a powerful thing. Rules us all really. This is important to let me clarify. Social knowledge is what one’s tribe believes to be true about the world.
And until the Age of Science, social knowledge was all people had outside of their own limited experience. And we’re a tribal animal, it’s very important that the tribe members all live in the same reality. So it’s not surprising that people are prone to adapting the shared world view (another term for social knowledge) of their friends, family, and community. And since we all have a need to understand the world, or make sense of it at least, people who claim to explain the world can become very popular. Messiah’s are common, and some do indeed change the world.
Christ, Buddha, Muhammad come to mind. Trump is another, though who knows how long term his effect will be. Q as well. The popularity of both is perfectly normal human behaviour. Will they be temporary disturbances in the force, or will they ripple down through history? Will there be a church of Trump or Q? Damned if I know. I’d give both at least a 1% chance of seeding something long term. Today’s theory is that Q is an AI or an alien (or an alien AI,) experimenting on the human race. Might be benevolent, benign, or malignant. Ancient aliens theory is quaint compared to my suspicions about aliens, nu?
Here in northern Iowa, winter came back, but it’s rapidly leaving again. I’m going to plant flowers, and when I get my second Covid shot, I’m leaving too! I’m going to drive around the country, see stuff, take pictures, and blog. And since there are people out there, even if it violates the introverts’ code, I will sometimes talk to them. Shudder. Hopefully they will say something worth blogging about. And with any luck I will find nice spots to rest in briefly while I am at it. A man can dream.
Stay safe everyone. As always, comments, likes, patrons appreciated. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved. Picture I took of the frozen lake and seawall just before winter ended the first. I photoshopped out a second ice fishing hut, and I’m pleased with the image I created. It was a magical sunset.)
THROUGH THICK AND THIN
There will be a Borders III post, but it’s going to have to wait a bit. And boy, turns out there’s a lot of people on Facebook who claim to be the Messiah. I’ll get a post out of that someday too. I know someone who lost their wife and kids to a cult once, self styled messiahs have an unholy attraction for some people. Today, I’m going to be all over the place. Or more so than usual I suppose. My staff consists of one useless cat at the moment. Working on a partnership though, she’s already been far more helpful than the cat.
Moving right along, January 31 was a big day in history. I mean, every day has all sorts of historical events on it. (Except June 31, nothing ever happened on June 31, no one knows why.) However, January 31, a big day as in important well remembered events. This was the day in 1943 where German Field Marshal Paulus surrendered to the encircling Russians at Stalingrad, thus ending the greatest battle in history. Hitler had promoted Paulus to Field Marshal because no German field marshal had ever surrendered. Have I ever mentioned that Hitler was prone to magical thinking? Stalingrad was Hitler’s Pickett’s Charge, the war would only go downhill for Hitler from there.
On January 31 the VietCong launched simultaneous surprise attacks on every provincial capitol in South Vietnam, and even breached the American embassy’s grounds in Saigon. It caught America and South Vietnam by complete surprise, but it didn’t trigger the general uprising the VietCong had been counting on, and the Tet Offensive as it was called, was a tactical and strategic disaster, one from which the VietCong would never recover from. And in the USA, it was a political death blow for president Johnson, and significantly eroded American support for the war. That’s because some months earlier Johnson had announced … victory! The VietCong had been beaten, the war was all but over, the US could start pulling out. So yeah, a massive nationwide VietCong surprise attack pretty much destroyed Johnson’s credibility, and was in fact the beginning of the end for America’s misbegotten involvement in southeast Asia.
Well, those were the big two events, enough for January 31. Although in another historical footnote: Meet Eunice Foote, The Mother Of Climate Science Whose Work Was Ignored Because Of Her Sex. She was the first person to discover the role that CO2 plays in changing the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere. The greenhouse effect as it is called. Since she was a woman though, she wasn’t allowed to present her findings at the 1856 American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. A man got the honor and the credit 3 years later. Sigh. It would be over 100 years before she was recognized for her groundbreaking discovery.
In a medical breakthrough: Two more coma patients’ brains jump-started with ultrasound. Waycool. People sometimes come out of comas after years or even decades. The brain’s ability to heal itself is quite amazing. We are talking comas though, this would not have helped the sadly famous Terri Schiavo, she was in what is known as a persistent vegetative state. PVS is a horrible condition, the patient has normal sleep and awake cycles. They may laugh, they may cry, they may appear to be looking around. So it’s easy to see why friends and loved ones would very much cling to the belief that they are still alive and may recover. Alas, what PVS sufferers don’t do is communicate in any way, there is literally no one home. And while a few people who were misdiagnosed as being in a PVS have recovered, they were all showing signs of improvement after a few months. No one has ever recovered from an actual PVS diagnosis, the part of the brain that makes us who we are is irreparably damaged.
Moving from inner space to outer space (lame segue I know) here’s an interview with the professor who thinks Oumuamua was alien technology of some sort: Professor Avi Loeb: ‘It would be arrogant to think we’re alone in the universe’. On the one hand, he’s plugging his new book on the topic. On the other hand he does have a point regarding how the scientific community can be hostile and non supportive of anything related to aliens. A situation that’s unlikely to change until we actually find actual evidence for them, it’s way too easy for politicians to ridicule SETI, why attract attention from them?
And another scientist has come up with an explanation for the Wow! Signal. The Wow! Signal was detected in 1977 and has never been explained. Here’s another try though: Was the Wow! Signal Due to Power Beaming Leakage? Basically humans are starting to experiment with beamed power to launch spacecraft and such, and the Wow! Signal might well be “leakage” from aliens doing the same. It’s an interesting idea, and suggests we might want to observe that part of the sky continuously to see if it ever repeats.
Lastly, back on Earth. I, for one, look forward to Qbacca testifying at Trump’s impeachment trial: ‘Complete circus’: Lindsey Graham fears ‘QAnon Shaman’ testimony at Trump’s impeachment trial. All of Trump’s lawyers have quit at this point, it’s not clear who will represent him at his trial in just over a week. Apparently all he wants to talk about at the trial is his fantasies about election fraud. It’s gonna be interesting, if not a total circus. I don’t think Trump’s ever faced anything like it, this isn’t going to be a press conference where he can ignore questions, hurl abuse at the questioner, and storm out if he doesn’t like how things are going. He might try though, boy, won’t that be fun.
Stay safe and warm everyone. Just maybe things will settle down now and the Capitol Riot was peak insanity over Trump’s election fraud charade. A man can hope. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Field Marshal Paulus surrendering at Stalingrad. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.
Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-F0316-0204-005 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
No changes were made in the image. Paulus actually survived being a Russian prisoner. Most of the nearly 300,000 men who surrendered with him didn’t. Stalin had in fact promised that Paulus’ men would be well treated, and did order so. Yeah, by this point the Germans had done terrible things in Russia, so Stalin’s orders were for the most part ignored. Paulus lived until 1957.)
BORDERS
OK, off we go. News? I used to get a lot of news from the Wapo and the NYT, not anymore for reasons I explained at length in recent blogs. Now my top two news sites are the BBC and The Guardian. Plus other sites too, one should get their news from a wide variety of sources, international ones for sure. Haaretz and Al Jazeera are good for example. They all have their biases, blind spots, propaganda. This is what God gave us brains for, to separate the wheat from the chaff. I’ve never seen any major fact checking errors on Snopes for example, the truth is out there. In fact how people react to Snopes pretty much tells one if they are connected to reality or live in a fantasy world. I often hear a nice selection of false arguments from Snopes deniers. “They’re not professional fact checkers!” is my favorite. Um, so what? Show me a topic where Snope’s is factually in error. I’ll wait. And then Wikipedia is a great source for non controversial topics. A topic that corporate America or the US government wants to control the narrative on, skip Wikipedia entirely. What’s there may not be wrong, but it certainly won’t represent reality.
So, back to news, China threatens war if Taiwan declares independence.* Taiwan is a small island off the coast of China, a little bit bigger than Maryland, a little bit smaller than the Netherlands. It’s yet another relic of the Cold War. When Mao and his communists won the Chinese Civil War after World War Two, the US backed side fled to the island of Taiwan, and protected by the United States, there they remained. If the US hadn’t protected them, Taiwan would just be another province in China that no one outside of China had ever heard of.
And as I understand it, most people in China are adamant that Taiwan is indeed part of China, no discussion allowed. And this, in a nutshell, is why nationalism sucks sheet. The idea of a nation is great from many perspectives, but when that idea runs roughshod over self determination, it’s simply tyranny. When the United States declared independence from Britain, its revolution was based ostensibly on the ideals of self determination, not to mention inalienable human rights. Yes, the founding fathers were hideous hypocrites who completely dishonored these ideals in the breach, founding a nation based on slavery and propertied white male supremacy, but the concepts are stll valid.
Alas, the world’s governments only apply them when it is in their interest to do so. America’s hypocrisy on this level is mind numbing, but of course completely normalized by the western press. To the point that many (most?) Americans are all for Taiwan being independent, but Crimea wanting to be part of Russia, that’s a terrible crime! The borders of the world were drawn up by the European colonial powers for their own exploitive ends, there’s nothing “normal” about them, but they are treated as such by the western press. A huge percentage of the world’s people, it must be in the 100s of millions, would rather be independent or part of another country than the one they are in.
Countless examples. The Kurds, 30 million of them, Kurdistan should have been a country after World War One. Kashmir, if they ever got to vote, would almost certainly want to be part of Pakistan. Large parts of Pakistan would rather be part of Pashtun Afghanistan. Tibet was once an independent country. I wouldn’t even know where to start in Africa, it’s a nightmare of colonial boundaries. And then countless indigenous people around the world would rather be their own country as much as possible. Why not, there’s at least 5000 ethnic groups on the planet, why should there be only 300 countries? Andorra, a nation the size of Peoria Illinois, has been independent for over 500 years. It can be done. And there are many others.
This, at the core of it, is why the aliens fly right by us. About 300 armed gangs control Earth for the benefit of a tiny number of people already so rich they could live a thousand lifetimes and not spend it all. Any sane species would long ago have fixed this. Give people self determination, and the border problems sort themselves out. And put mechanisms in place to make sure everyone benefits from the world’s wealth, it is a collective effort. Make it so businesses can’t pass health and environmental costs onto the public, the free market will indeed fix things like global warming. No ideology or religion need apply. They are the problem, not the solution. Granted some are worse problems than others. Anti-vaxxers. White Supremacists. Nazis. Yeah, I’m still anti-Nazi. Convince me otherwise. Though I do accept and try to understand the appeal. Germany was a modern educated land.
The above map is a preliminary speculation about a balkanized America. The native peoples especially should be scattered about in ancestral lands, but it’s a start. I don’t think the world colonial government is going to collapse anytime soon, but many people were surprised by the fall of Rome and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Times change, I plan to blog about it as long as I can. The Earth Burning blog. Stay safe gentle readers. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
*China tends to be more forthwith than doublespeak western diplomacy, this is likely a promise, not a threat.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Map by blog author: Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.)
Doug's Darkworld 