The Dear Hunter

While letting my thoughts wander over the words of those angered-up by OWS and other street protests in an article at the Economist website, Rage against the machine, I came across an interesting observation by Der Perfessor:

The major reason why a solution to the Euro crisis is not happening is that the Banks are insisting that ALL their losses on the Euro bonds be repaid by the governments. No haircut at all! In fact, would you believe it, they now want the 450 billion Euro guarantee offered by the EFSC be expanded to, yes , ONE TRILLION EUROS. And they have sufficient sway to prevent a solution to the euro crisis until they get it.

Until the barbarians at the gate find the means to recruit critical masses of unhappy mercenaries to crash the homes/businesses of those in finance who help support “the 1%” – doing real damage a la Gaddafi’s downfall – then life is endlessly the same thing all over again, is it not?  No matter how many bandaids in the form of refinanced mortgages we apply to the leaking aorta of a dying system.

What was it that guy said in “Tuesdays with Morrie,” that those who bankroll the military and police to support their financial lavishness are always the real ones in power, no matter how public they appear?

Who casts the first stone, as they say in my subculture?

Not me.  I know who I am.  I’m as guilty as the next ex-office worker whose fortune was built on a rigged financial system no different than the average Ponzi/pyramid scheme wrapped in an emperour’s new clothing line.  An indoctrinated, brainwashed technogeek who created an organisation so well-entrenched into the current dysfunctional system that it’s no better or worse than the system it purports to overrun.

I keep waiting for my team of hackers and scientists tied to the supercomputer to show me a global socioeconomic system that keeps everyone fat/trim, dumb and happy, but they just keep feeding me one exploitative system after another.

There’s a lesson in here, if I choose to think about it…

Holiday Delivery

It began innocently enough.

Years ago, while our local government experimented by inoculating innocent people with viral material, the forerunner to BONS devised a plan to deliver an unknown substance into the not-yet-fully-grown members of a species.

But how…?

Then, during an emergency message session with early members of MORTIE, it hit us.

Halloween candy!  Of course…

But when…?

Now.

The microorganisms and nanobots have been tested until our test subjects got blue in the face and could no longer breathe…but that’s not important right now.

This year, people across the world will stuff their faces with [non]sugar[free] substances that have been molded and coloured with Halloween themes.

Forthwith, this great nation shall finalise the species interconnection dream of a scientist some claim came from another world.

But as you know, what’s the difference between celestial bodies among friends?

No more relying on our main five senses.

Straight-to-nanobot communication will greatly increase our propaganda productivity.

The illusion of freedom of the individual will be complete.

All the old arguments about racial/genetic inequality won’t matter because we’ll all be equally connected.

What’s the point of mind reading if every one of your thoughts has been written by NBN, this new nanobotnetwork?

Those who’ve argued about the detrimental effects of the MSM (mainstream media) will happily embrace the NBN unknowingly.

In fact, most of you already use cars, mass transit, computers, and mobile phones without blinking an eye in revolt.

So eat your Halloween candy, breathe in the clouds of smoke machines, drink bottled/tap water/soda/beer/wine/liquor, bob for apples, drive/ride to parties, and join your families/friends in the holiday revelry.

In the future, don’t call it the contagion.  Call this period in the transition of our species our destiny with technology.

The more candy you, your friends, and family eat, the more the microorganisms and nanobots become part of you, exhaled when you breathe out, passing into the atmosphere and speeding toward full saturation of Earth.

We need this global expansion of the laboratory experiment in order to start the next phase, seeing if atomic level transformation will allow us to modify our species for space travel.

With seven billion specimens as test subjects, we can pick and choose which genetic mutations ensure our highest survival rate while in-transit between celestial bodies.

Besides, the law of unintended consequences will surely create a few new industries we haven’t thought of yet.

Speaking of which, time to get out the Book of the Future and see which industries it tells us will make the out-of-work, frustrated street protestors happy again.

That’s the one thing we haven’t figured out how to solve with the microorganisms and nanobots we’re integrating into the worldwide populace – emotion control.

We can tell you what makes you happy.  We can create enticements that make you want to seek happiness.  You get to the point where you seek happiness without our prodding.

But we haven’t found a 100% unhappiness cure/antidote.

Our soothsayer on staff keeps trying to tell us that unhappiness is an important part of what makes us alive.

Who’m I to disagree with the soothsayer?

Thanks to John at Pizza Hut; Cheryl at Gibson’s BBQ; Shalyn, Connie, Sam, Darrel and others at Publix; Rave Motion Pictures; Brittany at Target; the staff at Brookdale Place.

Happy Halloween – the gobbling will get you if you don’t watch out! Oh, ho ho, ha ha, he he…

 

Phantom of the guillotine is clearly discerned in many areas of the world’s capitals

Phantom of the guillotine is clearly discerned in many areas of the world’s capitals

Политолог Гейдар Джемаль — о том, почему многие демократически избранные лидеры могут вскоре с горьким сожалением вспомнить «старика Каддафи» Political scientist Heydar Jamal – that is why many democratically elected leaders can be shortly with bitter regret to remember “the old man’s Gaddafi”

Phantom of the guillotine is clearly discerned in many areas of the world's capitalsГейдар Джемаль Heydar Jemal

«Ливийцы, вы не понимаете, что творите! “The Libyans, you do not understand what he was doing! То, что вы сейчас делаете, не соответствует исламским законам» — таковы были последние слова лидера Ливийской Джамахирии, когда его, окровавленного и простреленного в нескольких местах, били рукояткой пистолета по голове молодые люди в среднем не старше половины срока правления того, кто неожиданно попал им в руки. What you are doing now, does not comply with Islamic law “- such were the last words of the leader of Libya, when it’s bloody and shot through in several places, struck on the head with a pistol grip young men on average no more than half of the term of someone who suddenly got into their hands. У некоторых из них ровесниками режима Каддафи, вероятно, были их отцы. Some of them Gaddafi regime peers are likely to be their fathers. Сцены, последовавшие за этим, очень напоминали разгул якобинских масс в начале 90-х XVIII столетия во Франции. The scenes that followed it, much like binge Jacobin masses in the early 90s of the XVIII century France.

Наверняка такая ассоциация приходила в голову «венгерскому графу» Саркози, когда он смотрел, как голое тело человека, с которым он еще недавно обнимался и от кого принимал щедрые подачки на свои выборы, таскают по улицам неукротимые берберы. Surely such an association came to mind, “the Hungarian Count,” Sarkozy, when he watched the naked body of a man with whom he has recently embraced and from whom they received generous handouts for their choices, drag through the streets of indomitable Berbers. «Вот она, сакральная жертвенность лидеров», — вероятно, думал французский президент, поеживаясь и поводя плечиком. “Here it is, sacred sacrifice leaders” – probably thought the French president, shivering and twitching shoulder. И думал так, скорее всего, не он один. And I thought so, most likely, he is not alone. Уличная расправа с последним харизматом мировой политики — это даже не смерть Милошевича в камере и не удавление Саддама по суду, хотя бы и шемякину! Street violence in recent Charismatic world politics – it’s not even Milosevic’s death in a cell and strangling Saddam on trial, even though Shemyakin! Дела в мире пошли такие, что призрак гильотины явственно проглядывает на многих площадях мировых столиц. Business in the world have gone such that the specter of the guillotine clearly shows through in many areas of the world capitals.

Каддафи ушел как мужчина, до конца сопротивляясь тем, кто захватил его в плен. Gaddafi stepped down as a man, until the end of resisting those who took him prisoner. То, что обстоятельства расправы свидетельствуют не в их пользу, подчеркивается сумбурностью и очевидной лживостью разнообразных версий в описании смерти полковника. The fact that the circumstances of the massacre is evidenced not in their favor, and emphasizes the confusion apparent falsity of various versions of the description of the death of Colonel. Особенно красочна деталь насчет канализационной трубы. Especially colorful detail about the sewer line. Все бы ничего, но вот один из повстанцев восклицает: «А он нас крысами называл! Everything would be fine, but here is one of the rebel cries, “He called us rats! А сам-то в трубе…» — и этим испортил хорошую пропагандистскую байку, выдав мучающий большинство антикаддафистов комплекс собственной ничтожности. But he himself something of a pipe … “- and this has spoiled a good propaganda tale, issuing a tantalizing most complex of his own insignificance antikaddafistov. Другой «боец» подробно рассказывал на камеру, как Ливия теперь хорошо заживет после расправы над тираном, и говорил при этом с таким качественным американским акцентом, который не у всякого преподавателя английского языка услышишь. Another “soldier” described in detail at the camera, as Libya is now a well-healed after massacres of a tyrant, and spoke with such a high quality American accent, which does not have any English teacher will hear.

Надежды знатока английского языка на скорый мир после устранения полковника вряд ли сбудутся. Hope an expert in English to a speedy peace after the removal of colonel is unlikely to come true. Слишком разнородны силы, составляющие ливийскую оппозицию. Too diverse forces that make the Libyan opposition. Теперь после исчезновения общего для всех врага явно наступает время выяснить отношения между собой. Now, after the disappearance of the total for all of the enemy clearly it is time to clarify the relationship between them. Ставки очень велики — крошки с приватизированного Западом «стола Каддафи», которые будут бросать представителям «новой власти». The stakes are high – the crumbs from the privatized West “Gaddafi table” that would throw the representatives of the “new power”. Вот уже кинули… одиннадцать миллионов (!) на то, чтобы искать и сдавать переносные зенитные ракетные комплексы, мол, они не должны попасть в руки (тут самое интересное!) «Аль-Каиде»! That’s already thrown … eleven million (!) On what to look for and take the man-portable air defense systems, they say, they should not fall into the hands (the most interesting thing here!) “Al-Qaeda!” Той, о которой кричал Каддафи Западу и которую Запад поддерживал как интегральную и наиболее эффективную часть оппозиционных сил. One, which cried Gaddafi and the West that the West supported as an integral part and the most effective opposition. Беспощадный факт: Запад платит гроши революционерам за то, чтобы они разоружились, причем платит из украденных Западом ливийских денег. Merciless fact: West pays a pittance for the revolutionaries that they disarm, and pays out money stolen by the West Libya.

Кроме того, мира не стоит ждать и потому, что очень многие, воздерживавшиеся от участия в боевых действиях из нежелания прослыть каддафистами, теперь с легким сердцем могут брать в руки оружие и учить молодежь как правильно понимать исламские традиции в части обращения с поверженным врагом. In addition, the world should not expect, and because many people, refrain from participating in the hostilities of the reluctance to pass for kaddafistami, now with a light heart may bear arms and to teach young people how to understand the Islamic tradition in the treatment of the defeated enemy.

Но и НАТО уже не имеет морального права бомбить все, что напоминает им «военные объекты, представляющие угрозу для гражданского населения», поскольку злодея, оправдывающего такие бомбардировки, больше нет. But NATO has no moral right to bomb anything that reminds them of the “military objects that represent a threat to the civilian population,” as the villain to justify such bombardment, no more. Продолжение вооруженного вмешательства в ливийские дела рискует превратиться уже во внутренний скандал самой Европы. Continuation of armed intervention in the Libyan case is already in danger of becoming an internal scandal of Europe itself.

Наконец, последнее: мир стоит на пороге протестного взрыва, который по своим масштабам намного превзойдет события 1968-го года. Finally, the last: the world is on the verge of explosion of protest, which on a scale far superior to the events of 1968. И поскольку больше нет СССР, предававшего левое движение Западу во имя пресловутой конвергенции, постольку последствия этой новой протестной волны могут заставить не одного «демократически избранного» хозяина жизни вспомнить с горьким сожалением и угрызениями совести старину Каддафи. And since there are no more Soviet Union, brought the leftist movement to the West in the name of the notorious convergence, to the extent the consequences of this new wave of protest may make more than one “democratically elected” master of life recall with bitter regret and remorse old Gaddafi.

Stirring the holy water of religion

Literal view or mythical view – which drives your participation, if you participate, in the belief system/religion of your [sub]culture?

In a sect/denomination of the Christian religion – Presbyterianism – the views are mixed, some “pure” and some reinterpreted for changing times.

Here’s one group’s take on purity: Change-in-Book-of-Order_Covenant-Pres_2011-10-14.

Here’s one group’s take on finding literal interpretation – leaning on the research of Dr. Bryant Wood, Director of Research with the Associates of Biblical Research, Akron, PA, who spoke on the subjects of the “Great Discoveries of the New Testament” and “Digging up the Truth at Jericho”: Rogersville-Presbyterian-Church-bulletin_2011-10-16.

Every subculture modifies/makes rules to serve its members.

Same for programming a supercomputer connected to a network of billions of sets of states of energy like us.

Time to adjust some parameters.

Talk to you again soon.

One Shirt, Two Skirts, Red Shirt, Blue Skirts

Thanks to Penny, Gift and the staff at Thai Garden, to begin with.

The local and the universal.

While tracking meteoric dust streaking across clear, dark, star-filled nights, we pause…

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the hangout, where we stand and shoot the breeze, recalling with ease the moments we encountered the law rolling down the highway — expired tags, headlights out, speeding home after work — and pulling over for friends with badges.

Thanks to the guys at Advance Auto for that one.

And now, as we look back, thanking Brad at Bill Penney Toyota, Tony and Becky of Mowdy’s Old Fashion Apple Butter, the folks at Amis Mill Eatery, Cassie at the Apollo Cafe, Tasheria and Shermika at McDonald’s, and finally, Aaron and Rachel at Walmart, let’s take a breath…

Because here, in skills both rudimentary and complimentary, we spin around the floor at KCDC.

Harold, Joe, Naomi, Nicole, and Kelly instructing patiently.

We, the patients (sometimes patient), repeating, missing the beat but having fun, while high school football rules the battlefields and airwaves, repeating, stepping softly and loudly, sweating, perspiring, laughing, sitting, repeating.

A week before the Halloween party/contest/dance.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and back to Friday.

In the span of those 24×7 hours, we’ll see, well…we’ll see what we’ll see.

Tango, samba, rumba, foxtrot, waltz, swing, cha cha, salsa…

Ahh…

Almost sounds like the International Radio Operators or NATO Phonetic Alphabet, doesn’t it?

See why we go dancing?  We can talk about our aerobic activity and pass secret codes in the open at the same time.  Wished you’d thought of it first, didn’t you?

Never underestimate the power of dancing or leaving hints like accidental misspellings or hiding Morse code messages in the rhythm of typed speech.

I’m still a kid at heart, playing cowboys and Indians, knights rescuing damsels in distress, or capture the flag in this grownup body, but on a larger scale than in our neighbour’s backyard.

After all, what else have my friends got to do with our trillions, billions, millions and thousands of dollars wasting away in secret island hideouts?

Turn the whole solar system into an endless game of Dungeons and Dragons, Monopoly, Command-and-Conquer or Civilisations.

Isn’t that what you’re teaching your children?

I sure am.

Money is just a tool, a means of converting labour into investment credits, after all.

If you want to cure cancer, prevent disease, stop malnutrition, convert heathens or feed the poor, go right ahead.

Just don’t expect those who are in the middle of a game between monetised giants to play along with your wants and desires, unless you can find a way to make it interesting to them/us.

I have to keep reminding myself that we’re playing with live ammunition on continental scales because some days I forget they aren’t pop guns, paper boats, model rockets and remote-controlled toy airplanes, anymore.

In either case, the fun is still the same.

Sure, go ahead and pretend the stakes are higher.  To the big boys and girls, though, the local and the universal are the same.

The game is everything.  We’re just chess pieces that’ll all die sometime.

Remember, the rules change as the next set of players gets bored with the old rules and writes new ones to keep the game interesting.

There’s no conspiracy.  There’s only those who are willing to play with the lives of billions and those whose lives are played.  You always have the option of choosing which life you want to be.

See you in the next round we’re calling the Corporation vs. the People.

Choose wisely.

The rules are a little tricky this time – we’re adding an option for a select group of people to leave this planet and start a new game somewhere else, sacrificing a few thousand of us, maybe even millions, to make that option happen.

Sorry, but that’s just the way it has to be, giving all seven billion of us direct participation in the game we choose to play or get played.

Begin the beguine, as they say.

If you perspire, are you a sweater?

If you brag about how much you perspire more than others, are you a sweaty pants?

Oh, the Committee is at it again.  Some argue that, with Libya’s reorganisation under way, we should move the drone army/navy into Iranian, Israeli and/or Saudi territory and keep the global revolution on schedule.  Apply the usual political pressure, at least.

What is your definition of despotism?  A tyrant or a tyrannical society?

If a corporation was chartered in a geopolitical region that values freedom of speech, should the corporation’s policies and procedures actively protect freedom of speech?  If not, should the geopolitical region’s representatives legislate/require/regulate/adjudicate corporate policies and procedures to ensure freedom of speech is fully protected by law?

In other words, beware the corporation’s fear of the power of the consumer to control corporate behaviour and influence profit margins.  😉

To be a kid again, absent of the knowledge of adult games, freely playing on the street, cataloging fauna/flora in the woods, impressing teachers with studious habits…

Enough of this chatter.  Time for concrete action.

See you in a few days.

Murdering us with statistics

<start chapter of humorous novel>

As a species, we like to hunt and kill one another, it seems.  So be it.  I admit I am who I am because of what my species does, regardless of the percentage of us who wouldn’t hurt a fly but would call in an air strike without hesitation.

Or kill formerly caged wild beasts, reliving our nomadic hunter-gatherer days once again for 15 5.352 seconds of Internet video fame.

But back to statistics.  Here are two more data points worth considering:

  1. Statistics about the official economy
  2. The lack of statistics about the shadow economy

Next up, give me that oldtimey religion – a word about archaeology and a word about modern belief structures.

= = =

Thanks to Miranda and staff at Beauregard’s, Eric Mc and staff at Chili’s.

= = =

To the Saboteur Squad, you know which solar manufacturers to target – the ones doing the dumping.  Proceed.

<end chapter of humorous novel>