The Georgia Guidestones

What should be easily recognizable as the goals of humanity if space invaders ever actually do land and find a decayed Earth long since vacated of any human civilization, is only insulted and thwarted by those stumbling over each other for more power and more institution:

THE MESSAGE OF THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.
10.Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

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What's almost as interesting as the mystery of the display itself, is the reaction by religious leaders (click on link and scroll down to "reaction" in the Wiki page). Humanity could learn a thing or two by following these new ten commandments.

If SPR Is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right

As usual, Spinoza Ray Prozak, a.k.a. Brett Stevens, has made his point loud and clear over at ANUS.com. I can't say it better than SPR, so I'll include a link and some fun facts from his newest article, "Equality As A Tool Of The Salesperson":

Of course, it was witless this whole time to assume consequences would not arrive. They did, and now thirty years later, we're awakening to the fact that:

- We have eliminated the open spaces natural species need to breed, frolic, hunt and nest.

- We have made toxic most of our air and water.

- We have created ugly, utilitarian cities of square shapes.

- Our societies reward the biggest drama queens because drama is necessary to rise above equality.

- We are entering an age of constant political conflict where unlimited wants meet finite reality.

- We have dumbed ourselves down by insisting on equality instead of rewarding the exceptional.

- Our climate may or may not be getting ready to destroy us -- our authorities cannot agree.

- If you ask any modern person their woes, once you get beyond the car payments and toothaches, you will find that these consequences at the root of their misery. Essentially, the social infrastructure is rotted and has been replaced by social preference, which leads to the lowest common denominator enthroned as the optimum.

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Globe Shuts Down Comments; Continues Propaganda

Some of the most controversial recent articles published on Boston.com have had comments shut down where normally, comments from users would soar and draw attention to an article or site. This includes a recent story about a(n) (il)legal immigrant apparently about to lose access to his health care:

State lawmakers deleted money for immigrants’ health insurance as one of many cuts made to balance the budget for the fiscal year that began July 1. Governor Deval Patrick has proposed a $70 million compromise plan that would grant immigrants access to medical care in August, when their coverage ends, through a patchwork of other state programs that health advocates say is spotty and confusing, especially for those who, like Hernandez, do not speak English.

The 30,000 immigrants caught in the middle have “special status’’ in the immigration system. Many have been in the country less than five years and are seeking asylum from war-ravaged regions.

Hernandez, a 51-year-old janitor, said he arrived in the United States on a visa in 1993, a year after a 12-year civil war ended in his homeland. He applied for asylum and was denied, but was able to obtain temporary legal status in 2001 after a series of earthquakes shattered his country.

Besides, his older brothers and a sister in El Salvador needed the money he sent home.

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Shouldn't he be prosecuted for sending US cash out of the country?

I'd be a bit more worried about a lifelong US citizen losing access to health care - or, for example, being forced to pay a fine or pay insane amounts of money for health care if they can't prove they have it annually on their tax return. Yet, legal (actually, illegal...with "special status", woo hoo!) immigrants are worried that their state subsidized health care is running out? Too bad. People aren't spending money and the state is scrambling for funds, so just like any business, costs have to be cut when revenues fall, particularly in the short term where budget gaps needs to be closed. Don't these people realize that it takes money to supply anyone with free, expensive services? If the well dries up, who's fault is it?

I almost want to believe that states as high-profile as Massachusetts are doing this on purpose so the Obama administration can continue to push universal health care on us. Almost...not quite there yet.

People like me, lifelong residents of New England, are considering leaving the region over issues like this. A relative of mine can't get any health coverage because she can't find a job, but also has a few grand in her savings account and that's considered too much for MassHealth, so they told her to go spend her money. So the system rewards people who hide any money they do have - or in this case, sending it back to their relatives in another country, which is engaging in illegal activity - and punishes the people who pay into the system when they shop, pay income taxes, or generally PRODUCE something in society via economic activity.

People like Ms. Sacchetti, who apparently disabled comments on this story and is all about illegal immigration, always fail to speak about the tax base and how alienated citizens feel when they have to pay for services given away to illegal immigrants for free. This country was not intended as a safe haven for anyone who lives in a country that has earthquakes (the reason Mr. Hernandez is given special status in the first place, even though he was denied special status during a time of civil war in his country). I guarantee you not one person from L'Aquila is asking the US to take them in because they are in the middle of an "earthquake ravaged region" the way Mr. Hernandez did.

Massachusetts needs to get out of the business of providing for those who don't provide anything back to the state. These are people who are likely working under the table, don't file taxes, and take their cash and send it out of the country, which is illegal. Is it any surprise that when lifelong residents go through rough economic times and start saving their money, that the government scrambles to find ways to continue pumping cash into systems that are unconstitutional and shouldn't exist in the first place? Talk about unsustainable. Time to steer the ship away from the iceberg - hopefully starting with a new governor (only wish Arth wanted to run here).

Independence Day

Click here for my recent article on Corrupt.org about just how far we've come from the leaders who had the vision to found this great nation. Happy Independence Day!

Surprise, Surprise: Our Ancestors Weren't Morons

Archeologists said yesterday that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found - several flutes that inhabitants of southwestern Germany laboriously carved from bone and ivory at least 35,000 years ago.

Just a few feet away from a bone flute, researchers discovered one of the oldest examples of figurative art - the sculpture of a woman carved from mammoth ivory, a find announced earlier this year. Excavations have also unearthed an array of other art, including carvings of mammoths, cave lions, and mythic half-animal, half-human figures.

A culture rich in figurative art, sophisticated adornments, and music does not directly result in better hunting or more successful reproduction, but music in particular might have had an indirect effect, providing better social ties or improving communication, according to Conard.

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This thinking appears to be backwards: music helped humans evolve into what we are today, so we could create symphonies, phone lines, and Facebook. No, I think that we created music because we were further evolved 40,000 years ago than many of us like to believe, and have had much better success in formulating socities back then even despite having to fight for survival more often in those earlier times.

Either way, the fact remains that the longer we dig back, and the more we find, the creepier our human past becomes to us moderns: we didn't just evolve from block-headed monkeys into the iPhone users we are today, with a little Leave It To Beaver-esque 1950s society tucked neatly between our past and modern eras. There were societies of hunter-gatherers who could make art, play music, and do everything we do today, except they lived in a much more harsh and reality-driven world. Finding things like this makes us think about our lineage in a backward fashion instead of owning up to the fact that maybe what we call "progress" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Obama Scares The &*%# Out Of Me

A few stories about our new president that have made their way into the media recently have scared me quite a bit. What's shocking is not the fact that Obama is taking power away from Americans and putting it squarely on his own shoulders, but that people are all too willing to give it away with little fanfare.

Here's the most recent of questionable tactics, in regard to free air time given to Obama by ABC regarding a government health care program he's pushing, while ABC dismisses dissenting opinion during that same news conference:

ABC now gets to decide which points of view are valid and allowed to be heard, and which are not. In this case, they just so happen to be silencing Barack Obama’s opposition. What a striking coincidence that the people they’re excluding are the ones who aren’t falling into lockstep with our Dear Leader.

As I said repeatedly during the campaign, 2008 will be known as the year that journalism died. Why would the ass-kissers in the MSM suddenly start doing their jobs now? They’re doing so well propping up our Dear Leader. A fair, ethical media wouldn’t be choosing a side here. Real journalists would simply broadcast the debate with no bias, no shutting down of alternative opinions, and no favoritism. This is the stuff of the Soviet Union, not the United States.

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Cassy has a point: ABC is systematically destroying any fair sense of journalism by allowing Obama to present a government health care plan without any tough questions on the topic being thrown his way. It's both an admission that Obama wouldn't want any dissenting opinions, nor his answers to those questions, aired, and also a scarily effective tactic which tells me that the media has more power than I ever gave it credit for. I've never been one to pay much attention to the news media, and now I'll try to ignore it even more. Ironically, the most "liberal" and "progressive" of us are the most aggressive when it comes to controlling what we see and hear, and which dissenting opinions - if any - get aired. This is sad and shameful, and I'm surprised any of the people involved with this, including our new president, could call themselves "Americans".

Here is the letter written by Ken McKay [click here], which also includes a link to write the ABC exec responsible for this nonsense.

This is just one of a handful of red flags - actually, forget that; outright illegal activity - by the Obama administration. Recently, as I wrote on my other blog, Obama pushed Chrysler into bankruptcy court and muscled the court such that the decision came down to prioritize the labor union's wants over the legal rights of the bondholders - a complete reversal from normal bankruptcy law. While I'd love to see Alfa Romeos and Fiats being sold here, I don't want my president messing with the justice system just to avoid Chrysler being sold off in bits and pieces under his watch (sure, let the next guy deal with it so no one can say a major US automaker went out of business during my tenure). What's happening is absurd.

Blogs & Sites I'm Liking Lately

A couple of great ones:

http://www.amerika.org (Brett Stevens)

http://tradunt.blogspot.com (Tradunt; new)

More postings coming on Corrupt.org of course...and with a recent milestone birthday & child on the way, it's been tough to dedicate a lot of time to this space.

Recent Corrupt.org musings

Here's a couple recent articles, with more to come:

Co-Sleeping Arguments With Family

iPod and Apple: Interesting Historical Perspective

Demeaning Culture Through Generalization

As always, you can find my writings on Corrupt at the following two locations:

Regular blog
Family column

Ayn Rand: More Idiocy In The Media

Collective socialism tends to inhibit innovation, and no one captured this idea more perfectly than Ayn Rand. I think in the context of what America should be today, Ayn Rand's ideas generally work - of course, they're a bit oversimplified and I do not believe her work is a manual on how to run society, as some do. Still, she was a great writer and Atlas Shrugged was her magnum opus: integrating great character stories with her philosophy perfectly.

In hilarious fashion, writer Alex Beam delves right into the Ayn caricature of the typical elitist who pretends he's doing a favor for the masses - by criticizing a book and a philosophy he admits he's never read:

I would be the first to admit that I don't know much about Ayn Rand, beyond her name. The Ayn rhymes with dine, and Rand is supposedly an Americanization of her birth name Rosenbaum. I have heard the operatic details of her personal life, (much younger lover, proves to be fickle; drama ensues) and have a crude understanding of Objectivism, the "morality of rational egoism" that Brook cites above. Private entrepreneurialism = good; centrally planned, government-funded economy = bad.

As it happens, America's most prominent Randie is probably former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who presided over one of the most grandiose expansions of government expenditures in world history. In 1982, Greenspan attended Rand's funeral, where her body lay next to a large floral arrangement of a dollar sign. R.I.P.

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Alex Beam knows nothing of the economy, and nothing of Ayn Rand, only knows that Alan Greenspan attended Rand's funeral and that he presided over government expenditures. Those expenditures were caused by politicians, public pressure, silly world trade agreements - take your pick, but it wasn't Greenspan, who admitted after he left his post that most of what he had done was against what he believed in. But we can't speak out against the sanctity of the Federal Reserve falsely controlling the money supply, because that's an existing institution in the US and Rand is dead, so it's easy to make fun of her without ever reading her books.

Good work Alex, can't wait to read your next article!

Harvard Study Supports BPA Leaching Theory

Further to my original posts [1, 2] about the issues with BPA in plastic drinking bottles, Harvard has released a study which further confirms what everyone should by now know: stay away from products that leach chemicals:

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that people who drank for a week from the clear plastic polycarbonate bottles increased concentrations of bisphenol A - or BPA - in their urine by 69 percent.

BPA is used in hundreds of everyday products. It is used to make reusable, hard plastic bottles more durable and to help prevent corrosion in canned goods such as soup and infant formula.

Numerous animal studies in recent years suggest that low levels of BPA might cause developmental problems in fetuses and young children and other ill effects. The health effects on adults are not well understood although a recent large human study linked BPA concentrations in people's urine to an increased prevalence of diabetes, heart disease, and liver toxicity.



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Bisphenol-A is a widely used chemical additive. The only advice one can really give to pregnant women and families is to try to use stainless steel where possible (water bottles, etc. - check out Sigg and Klean Kanteen, or cut BPA out otherwise. Having canned foods only occasionally, using fresh produce, avoiding the microwave, and cooking in stainless steel pots and pans will greatly reduce the risk of disorders associated with BPA consumption. In short: live naturally, and avoid plastic in unnecessary applications like water bottles.

30 minute presentation on overpopulation

Worth checking out!

[Click here]

More from the Continuum Concept Community

I joined up with The Continuum Concept message board recently, as this idea on the surface seemed to be a good way to consider raising a child (we're expecting in Aug09). Essentially, the idea is to not tie them down with Mommy & Daddy's schedule or strict rules, but let them spend their time how they wish. I like to at least further that idea by stating it's still the parents' job to infuse some sense of cultural values & organic culture into the mind of the child. Try to avoid watching TV excessively, etc. Whether you do this with roundabout methods - focusing on the positive, like, "hey, let's turn the TV off and start preparing a nice healthy meal for dinner!", or setting soft rules in place regarding how much time is okay to sit in front of the idiot box - I don't think this matters as much as the idea that you don't want your child to resent you but you need to start early in terms of gearing them toward a "good" lifestyle.

The unfortunate part of all this is that we've lost the sense of community present in the Yequana tribe, on which the entire concept is based per the author's experience in the novel which set this concept in motion. So on the Continuum Concept forums, you end up with people thinking that community isn't necessary; it was a byproduct of the Yequana tribe living within this Continuum. How they could ever believe that cultural values & strong community has little or nothing to do with the Continuum Concept is beyond me. I feel the inverse is true: without the sense of community & values that are more in accordance with nature than anything we see in industrialized societies today, there would be no Continuum Concept.

This post in particular caught my attention:

I also feel that we are lucky to have "continuum+", ie we have the ability to choose to be connected and we have other freedoms that are to do with our modern world that the Yequana and other tribal people might not have (yet) - although it is interesting to me to see how these people will incorporate the modern stuff into their systems.

Continuum-plus? Because the Yequana didn't have microwaves & TV but we do? I think this idea is ludicrous, and here's my response:

How are we more free than a tribal people in the modern world?

My brother in law is with WorldTeach for a year in Costa Rica. While many of the people in the tiny village he's in love his presence and he's picking up that dialect of Spanish quite well, I envy the idea of unplugging from modern conveniences and living more in accordance with nature. He has changed drastically since going down there; I can hear it in his voice & feel it in the blog he keeps for us family members. You mention the economic crisis to these people and they'd laugh at you - what economic crisis? I feel the people in Costa Rica, living in small houses & sharing food & working together during times of real crisis are a lot more free than people who can jump on a plane for business travel and are always tied to blackberries. The more you centralize government for the sake of "modern society", the less free you really are, because you're relying on leaders that could be thousands of miles away from you to make decisions on your daily life.

I don't think we should eliminate all technology, but if you're talking about true freedom, we pay it lip service in the media but what does freedom mean? Freedom from the evil terrorists in the middle east? Freedom from your government telling you what to do, what to watch, or worse, watching you? Freedom from your neighbor robbing from you, freedom to arm yourself? Many of these are imaginary rights & freedoms to a tribe that simply lives off the land with a group of people, most of whom they get along with simply because they have to, and can choose to swim, go for a hike, or relax and look up at the sky during their free time. I like that idea of freedom better than going to a voting booth while my government (in the US, at least) continues to waste the money we allow them to have on wars in far-off countries for the sake of nonrenewable resources that will dry up in 100 years anyway.

Health care mess chasing people out of state

I posted on Corrupt here about a recent health care story in the news.

The driving points are as follows:

• Massachusetts legislators are looking for new & creative ways to force hospitals & doctors to spend less taxpayer dollars
• Hospitals & doctors are just trying to do their jobs but are being squeezed by insurance companies
• Insurance companies are squeezing patients as the result of above

We've seriously considered leaving the state, and if this mess of health care and increased taxes continues, I don't know how we can afford to stay here any longer. There's too much corruption, red tape, and government interference, and the worst part is, the traditional values of Massachusetts are so misaligned with where we are now. I can't call another state home, but I may have to at least try it out for a bit with the increasing squeeze being put on the middle class.

Massachusetts votes for higher income tax

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo won his first political victory with the 108-to-51 vote, persuading lawmakers to sign onto his plan to increase the sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25 percent. The vote also heightens the tension among top Beacon Hill Democrats, who have had sharp disagreements over how to solve the state's budget crisis.

Patrick opposes the plan and sent an ultimatum to all 200 members of the Legislature yesterday afternoon, promising to veto the increase unless lawmakers first enact transportation, ethics, and pension law changes he has sought.

"While I recognize the need for revenue, raising taxes of any kind during a recession is a bad idea," Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, who has not ruled out challenging Patrick, said in a statement.

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Keep in mind, Massachusetts is receiving $3billion in federal bailout funds from our federal government. And they won a scare tactic campaign victory in November by scaring voters into voting against an income tax rollback.

Treasurer Cahill's remarks highlight the problem with politics and an uneducated public: the problem isn't revenue generation, it's spending. The problem in Massachusetts has always been and will always be spending, not a lack of revenue. Toll roads, high excise taxes, high property taxes, high sales taxes...the state gets plenty of revenue. It just doesn't know how to spend it effectively.

And Deval, while I like what he's doing, the causes of his action are problematic. Per above, he's essentially saying, "I won't allow a tax increase unless you tell me I can spend it any way I want."

The politicians running our state have left the voters and citizens completely out of the political process. I hope to leave Massachusetts at some point when it makes sense, both career and family-wise, and let the socialists infect the entire state before it collapses. We're at the point of no return: it's easier to let things fall apart so we can build anew than try going back to the values upon which this state was founded.

Begging for socialism & dictatorship

In a shameful move by a shamefully & poorly managed US auto company, GM is now asking the government to completely take over the company so it doesn't have to run itself - nor confront the unions it plans to phase out:

GM is living on $15.4 billion in government loans and faces a June 1 deadline to restructure and get more government money. If the restructuring doesn't satisfy the government, the company could go into bankruptcy protection.

GM said in a news release that it will ask the government to take 50 percent of its common stock in exchange for canceling half the government loans to the company as of June 1.

If both are successful, the government and UAW health care trust would own 89 percent of the company's stock, with the government holding over a 50 percent stake, Henderson said.


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I would rather see GM go out of business or at least substantially reduce its product offerings (more than just slashing Pontiac; think much bigger - or smaller, as the case may be). The government should not be in the business of making cars for profit. And since the government will realize this soon too, taking over 50% of the company's stock (read: operational & financial decisions) means we're slowly getting on the path of government taking over all industry. Alarmist? Apocalyptic? OK maybe a bit too much melodrama to make such a leap, but it's still frightening for those of us who value good old fashioned hard work in our industry here in the States.

My only hope is that a strong state like Texas secedes from the union and shows the other 49 how it's done. Only that type of action will finally convince people that a heavily centralized federal government, which should not be in the business of bailing out or taking over industries to the point where those companies are given a lifeline just long enough to BEG the government to put it out of its misery as an independent for-profit going concern, has no place in this country.

If this (or something like it) doesn't happen? I fear the socialism bug that has infested too many countries in Europe, and spread all too easily via the EU.

Reverse colonization never looked so bad

"The Department of Health and Human Services has declared a Public Health Emergency as a precautionary tool to ensure that we have the resources we need at our disposal to respond quickly and effectively," Obama told a gathering of scientists, amid increasing worries worldwide about a possible pandemic.

In the United States, a private school in South Carolina was closed Monday because of fears that young people returning from Mexico might have been infected."

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Reverse colonization never took such a hard blow. A Mexican illegal is on the border, right now, hearing word about this, and has one foot in one country and one in the other. Maybe his thought process would go something like this: Go into the US at risk of swine flu but free medical care; go back to Mexico at risk of swine flu and not-so-great medical facilities.

Damn…I don't think this changes much about our illegal immigration issue.

It does highlight a couple of important points though, and people tend to largely ignore these in the politically heated debate about illegal immigration:

• As awful as that guy in The Godfather Part II was to Vito Andolini by changing his name to Corleone, checking his eyes, ears, nose, and throat for sickness was a good thing for our nation. I know; I'm the child of a legal Italian immigrant, the family of whom was rejected three times at the embassy due to eye infection in one child.
• Tolerance of everything except intolerance - this logic is hit hard by the simple reality that if you tolerate everything and everyone in a given society, you end up with no culture, no mores, nothing to which you can anchor your society. So "swine flu outbreak - let's shut down the border for a while and sort this out, oh and by the way, we're going to screen all passengers coming back from Mexico" becomes "swine flu - oh no - Obama will put the CDC into action and save us, all hail our savior!" We treat symptoms and effects in our society instead of causes: it's sickening, it can't last, and our country will crumble if we continue down this path.

The other, somewhat hilarious part about the article referenced above is that it's implied we'll now be doing "border screening". Really, even for those who sneak through and are never seen by Border Patrol? That'll work...

Watch!

Pentti Linkola

Working out and eating MEAT

My friend JF and I get into a good workout routine when the weather brightens in the spring, making it a point to go running on nice days during our weekly get-togethers so as to counterbalance the potentially filling/heavy food & drink we will consume later.

We're lucky enough to live in a great area of Massachusetts, so we run a 2.25 mile route (when we're in better shape, 4.5 miles - twice around) around a pond which is right nearby a Whole Foods & a liquor store. The events of last evening were as follows & are becoming regular, and are also depicted below:

• Run with JF and his dog for a few miles around a scenic pond


• Put dog in car, go to Whole Foods and buy some meat/food


• Go to liquor store and choose a couple of beers - my favorite lately have been Czech and German lagers (Warsteiner, Czechvar, etc.)


• Cook up meat on grill

It's still early spring, so it's nice to know there's a good few more months of this type of activity left. Nothing like a man/meatfest to end a week!

This particular feast included Sam Adams-infused bratwurst, 93% lean sirloin burgers, black forest extra-thick bacon, focaccia rolls, soft cheese, spicy mustard, garbanzo bean & couscous concoction by JF, and Czechvar beer. A true feast!

US Naval fleet falls apart before our eyes

"Greatest military force the Earth has ever seen", huh?

WASHINGTON—The piracy crisis over a lone hostage in the Indian Ocean took on the familiar air of a cops-and-robbers standoff, with the U.S. Navy seeking advice Thursday from seasoned FBI negotiators.

Their goal: Resolve the incident without military force.
As the FBI joined the delicate negotiations, the shipping company Maersk said that the safety of Capt. Richard Phillips is its No. 1 priority. Barack Obama, facing one of the first national security tests of his presidency, declined comment Thursday when asked about the standoff.

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So our Naval fleet, instead of using force to ensure this humanitarian aid ship can get on with its business, is enlisting the help of FBI negotiators? That must be comforting to the hostages.

Instead of being overly tolerant of moron "pirates" who fancy themselves heroes, kill them with long-range sniper attacks and salvage what you can of the vessel.

UPDATE 4/17/2009:

Navy SEALS shot three of the pirates in the head, killing them, using only three bullets. Good work! Unfortunately, we'll now have to listen to the liberal media talk about the poor, poor Somali pirates and how they're not really at fault because they were abused as children...look for that on Nightline within a month or two.

Father sells daughter, then renegs

SALINAS, Calif.—A California man accused of selling his 14-year-old daughter into marriage for $16,000, beer and meat has pleaded no contest to felony child endangerment.

Marcelino de Jesus Martinez had pleaded not guilty in February to procuring a child for lewd acts, aiding and abetting statutory rape and child endangerment. If convicted of those charges he faced 10 years in prison.

Martinez went to police to get his daughter back because payment wasn't made.

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Got that, people? Father sells daughter for beer & meat, doesn't get paid, the complains to the police.

Instead of locking him up on my taxpayer dollar, why not throw him out of the country all sliced up and what not? Take a knife to his face, maybe even carve an obscenity in there, let the 14 year old daughter do it, and put a GPS tracking device on this goon so we know when he tries to enter the country again?

If these types of hard lines are taken with scum like this, do you really think illegal immigration - especially the absolute WORST countries like Mexico have to offer - would be a problem?