Rumour has it that Indians have called for a worldwide boycott of Chinesemade goods until the Chinese military removes itself from Indian territory.
Otherwise, consequence will put Confucius in forgotten memory.
Tag Archives: politics
When…
When the U.S. political party known as the GOP recently moved to the far-right on the political spectrum, it moved the Democratic Party to the moderate right right where the GOP wanted the U.S. government to be, did it not?
After all, I see little in the way of protests about the latest appointments to the Obama presidential Cabinet, which means that the so-called left has no grounds for complaining and neither does the so-called right.
Stalemate.
Now, back to my reading the original issues of the exciting comic book series, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents!
Trends in the U.S. news
Two governors from the South (future Republican presidential candidates) and their families under investigation? Tell me it ain’t so, Hillary! 😉
Is your insurance provider driving your healthcare professionals out of business?
In Tennessee, a microcosm of the bigger national healthcare cost readjustment debate is taking place, as depicted here:
Can’t afford it? Then f’ing finance your way out of debt! Yeah, right.
Strange Daze
Today, I let my eyes wander over to websites I rarely find interesting only to find them interesting, including this “poster” at rare.us:
Which pushed my thoughts on to other mass media outlets and their statistical anomalies, including the Saturday Night Live “Five Timers Club“:
Is there a pattern here worth analysing or simply pointing out and laughing toward?
If George W. Bush’s image can be rehabilitated, then anything is possible, n’est pas?
Ancient roadbeds
A colleague once observed, “Never put a clown with nothing to lose and nothing to gain in charge of the planet. Society will quickly descend into comedic chaos.”
Speaking of which, a friend on Facebook said, “Did you hear one of the Boston bombing victims was five feet away from the bomb? One of them was hers. That’s why we should convert to metric.”
Another said, “The Boston bombing is just more proof that the combination of rap music and government welfare is a ‘gateway drug’ to violence.”
And another, “When Grandma pulls out her pressure cooker to make jam this fall, I’m gonna say, ‘Grandma, your jam is the bomb,’ just to see her reaction.”
Yet more, “Mercedes-Benz — Proud to present two high-lights. One: made for police-hating, gang-raping rap stars. Two: great protection for terrorists on the run.”
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Whew! These jokes and comments always follow major news headlines.
= = = = =
Now, back to serious pursuit of planetary exploration and settlement, where we decide whether to take seriously North Korea’s threat to launch missiles; the claim that Syria has used chemical weapons; the assertion that U.S. states will use Dept of Homeland Security funds to target abortion clinics and “morning after” pill providers as domestic terrorists; and if anyone cares about government abuses in Africa.
More about Dava Newman’s BioSuit
To put it in perspective, the goal is to combine a viable space suit and prosthetics to reduce the need for a fully biological human to participate in space exploration missions.
Thus, the bombs at the end of the Boston Marathon are part of the greater mission.
Putting the blame on some person or persons is a secondary function required to give Earthlings a feeling of justice served.
Anything else — fertilizer factory fires, earthquakes, etc — is a diversion to feed the various subpopulations their needs and wants — emotional attachment, hero worship, and so on.
Human nature being what it is
Watching the mob hatred build for the [what at this point we still call the alleged] Chechen men who were identified as suspects and then appear to have decided to flee Boston starting at a point not far from the original crime scene…
Well, it has my attention, the inconsistencies, that is.
As a storyteller and former jury foreman, facts never lie but people do.
In fact, people never remember the facts exactly as they were in full detail.
Our prejudices and other social filters focus us on details that we consider relevant to our personality traits.
At this point, no one has produced a purchase receipt that shows who acquired any of the following: pressure cooker(s), explosives and projectiles (nails, pellets, etc.), alleged to have been used in the attack on the Boston Marathon.
We have video that purports to connect two men to backpacks most probably containing IEDs.
We don’t have public evidence that ties the two men to the IEDs.
We have, instead, a massive rush to judgement, a lynch mob mentality that hasn’t changed in thousands of years.
I trust that the majority of people involved in the local Boston police, the FBI and other security forces are doing their jobs as honestly and lawfully as possible.
At the same time, I know that many people want justice, even vigilante justice, and there will be those who will facilitate that, providing means to justify the quick end to this terrible story, including the talking heads, the paid “experts” on the television screen and Internet popup windows.
Sigh…back to the larger story…the tale of our exploration of the solar system as we spread out into the galaxy.
I know today’s headlines will repeat themselves ad infinitum/ad nauseum, which should make me happy knowing I can write the same story over and over again without having to invent new emotions or mental states for readers to familiarise themselves therewith.
Some days the writing is easy. Some days, I wish my robotic writing machine wrote smoother sentences and fun-to-read stories.
As far as this current story goes, I, for the sake of a plot twist, will take this in the direction of a vast coverup and conspiracy to feed one group of my readers who will believe the two men who came here as asylum seekers with their family were easy-to-use pawns with websites and online profiles set up in advance for a convincing crime drama.
Gone are the days of a smoking gun and a tattered copy of the Anarchist Cookbook found in the trunk of a car.
Genre
My wife and I watched “The Departed” a few nights ago. We had planned to watch it the evening before the Boston Marathon but opted for finishing a film already showing on the tellie, Torn Curtain.
Why “The Departed”?
Well, it’s that plate-of-shrimp type thing.
You know what I mean — you want a straight good guy/bad guy movie, go to the theatre and watch “Olympus Has Fallen,” only to have your interest piqued in another movie because of previews discussing the career of Mark Wahlberg.
Even though Leo D and Matt D are not your favourite actors, you agree to watch a film about crime, cops, corruption and punishment in the south Boston area.
Then, as luck would have it (I can’t say that the phrase “better bad luck than no luck at all” applies to the local crime scene on the streets of Boston right now), your interest is raised higher due to the conflux of life imitating art, art imitating life, life imitating life and art imitating immigration control acts with as much likelihood of passing as gun control acts in the Senate but maybe as much as the CISPA cybersecurity bill in the House of Representatives.
While the world watches video clips of potential suspects of the Boston Massacre Part Deux, we have little in the way of interest in the U.S. of the faces on bombing perpetrators in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Such is the power of the Western mass media owners, advertisers and viewers who want to prove their peaceful way of life is best.
Now, tell me again, which companies, according to Forbes, are the tops in the world right now? Chinese banks, ICBC and China Construction Bank.
I won’t wax the philosophical surfboard and ride waves of meditation upon the rise and fall of company values and families based on shaky loans and house-of-cards economics.
Instead, I take off my hat and bow my head, in respect, to the recently departed.
For them, there is no future on celestial bodies.
For them, our celestial body futures are dedicated.
For them and the billions before them.
There is no imitation for life, no substitute, no art form that replaces our loved ones.
But art and imitations can teach a lesson.
Are you listening? Paying attention? Can you afford the cost?
treetrunkdings 