Month: August 2017

It hit me this morning that all people in prison for any offense whatsoever should be given access to Neurofeedback sessions.  It would calm them, and help make their imprisonment less traumatic, but more importantly, make them VASTLY less likely to commit the same crimes.

Many, many crimes are in effect the result of a superabundance of emotional pain.  This pain makes it hard to work, hard to think, hard to breathe.  It makes people seek out all forms of relief, in terms of drug and alcohol, but also in terms of violence, which can create moments of release from continual tension.

Armed robbery, rape, assault, car theft (especially by kids), drug use and sale: the list is long of crimes which originate in poor emotional health, itself characterized by chronic tension which that person can find no internal resources to calm.

It is a very worthwhile idea, designing a better society, but no design can proceed from any basis but the generalized individual psychological health of the populace.  “Equality” will do nothing.  It provides no sense of purpose in life, except for the lunatics who have made coercing the rest of us into it–as they define it–their own sole purpose in life.

All useful solutions proceed from the bottom up, from individual people feeling better and doing better.  If we are going to spend $60,000/year or whatever it is keeping people locked up, why not try something which in my view would have a good chance of actually rehabilitating–or, to use the Orwellian word one sees everywhere–“correcting” them.

And the same applies economically as well: a robust, rich economy depends on countless small entrepreneurs, and everyone who puts large numbers of barriers in their way necessarily chooses poverty for those who are not already well to do.

It is likely not overstating the case politically that the Left works intentionally to create and sustain problems in their base, because if the solutions were found, their rhetoric would be shown as empty, and their contributions as negative.  You cannot have a massive and increasingly prosperous middle class–including all ethnic groups–and continue to use the propagandistic weapon of class warfare rhetoric.

When one looks at the social history of the Left, there have been long periods of time where their de facto motto was “FUCK the middle class.”

I am really feeling that all of us are given a space, a room, to call our own when we are born.  But many of us are driven from it.  It–our core self, our core connection to space and time through our self–becomes unsafe and we become refugees from our natural born homes.  In my own thought, this home is our Kum, our space.  We are who and also where we are, although location per se is beyond the point.

And what I further feel is that when I harbor anger, viciousness, and vindictiveness, I am giving my own life away.  It is evaporating while I am not paying attention.  It is steam rising, carrying away all the good that could have happened.

It is perhaps the case–indeed, I believe it IS the case–that a life spent getting up every day, enjoying it as much as possible, and still never knowing what it is about, or what exactly I am supposed to be doing, so that I guess every day, is STILL a good life.  This is OK.  If life does not come with an instruction manual, it is perhaps because we are born knowing the basics, and that the rest doesn’t really matter that much.

It is so easy to fall prey to passions and manias which make everything feel important, when in reality what matters most is subtle, and only found in silence and peace. It is only found, or largely found, in dullness, or what seems like it.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned somewhere, I did martial arts of various sorts, one for a good long while, perhaps 7 years, and every practice would begin with the mantra “Every moment contains the potential of Great Enlightenment”.

So, I am not saying wisdom is not to be found everywhere, but when we give away our life, we push it away.

I am trying very hard to grow beyond some very significant psychological limitations, and I think making some progress.  This last week has been unbelievably unlucky and odd in some ways.  I literally looked up an astrologer to see if anything unusual was going on, and apparently this lunar eclipse is quite significant in terms of processing latent, unconscious Shadow energy.

I don’t know if I believe in all that, but when I had a reading done, it was quite accurate, and very different than what I feel someone could get from cold reading, or guessing generically.  In my own case, my Moon is very important.  It has jumped out at every astrologer who has looked at it.  They look at me funny for a second.  I’m the guy that runs into the burning buildings.  My first encounter with the name Leonidas, many years ago, was in reading about my moon.  And I do like to think I was one of the 300.  Any of them.  They fought the same, and they died the same.  That is a good death.

I may die a good death.  But I may die like the wasp I watched all day today, on the same job site.  It was plainly hurt and unable to fly.  It is possible I watched its last moments, as it crawled into a crack.  I was tempted at first to kill it–actually I tried to run it over with my cart, but missed.  After that, though, I watched it walk around the floor, periodically curl up into a ball in what appeared a spasm of some sort, then keep walking.  I kept an eye on him, and shared a part of my day with him.  He was my only company for much of it. I couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like to be a dying wasp, and then what it will be like when it is my turn, whenever that is.

Actually, ponder for a moment how much death happens outside your window each night: the bugs, the worms, the birds, the mice.  Ponder how many fish are eaten by other fish every moment in our oceans.  This is life on planet Earth.  We are all the same in that regard.  We are all destined for dissolution.

I understand a little, I think, why some Indian ascetics inhabit cremation grounds, and why many gods have skulls around their necks.

That’s enough wandering for now.  Good night!!!

Honest science recognizes that many even apparently simple systems aren’t, and that when many confounding factors are in play, in order to test any one specific hypothesis, you need to control for other variables.

With respect to Anthropogenic Global Warming, looking at upper Tropospheric temperatures is really the ONLY way to control for other variables.  Everything else, all warming and cooling, all weather events, all droughts and hurricanes–everything–falls within normal variability.  We know the Earth has been largely covered with ice, and we know it has been free of ice.  Everything in between is thus within normal variability, and EVERYONE INVOLVED KNOWS THIS.

Again, if one looks at nothing other than the methods chosen–unnecessarily unreliable temperature measurements, and treating climate models as established facts–an intelligent person should on this basis alone be able to conclude that the whole thing is fraudulent at its core.

When I was growing up, ignorance was not knowing State Capitals, or who the President was, or how to solve a quadratic equation.

It occurs to me, though, that the Left–and its many fellow travelers on the right, giving a more contemporary twist on the idea of pinko (we can’t go to Purplite, can we? That would be awful)–has managed to define ignorance as disagreement with the dominant themes they are pushing. To think XY means we are dealing with a boy becomes, not stating the obviously scientifically true, but rather ignorance of the idea that gender is constructed.

To question global warming is to betray, not a skeptical, authentically scientific mindset, but ignorance. This, “knowledge” comes to equal conformity, and what used to pass for knowledge–that quaint artifact of hated whiteness called “science”–is equated not just with ignorance, but bigotry.

The whole thing is wholesale lunacy. It is a bag of cats.

As I have stated on several occasions, the basic hypothesis of Anthropogenic Global Warming is fairly simple: the burning of fossil fuels, and following release of CO2 into the atmosphere, is likely to cause a quick and environmentally important increase of CO2 concentrations in the upper Troposphere.  It is generally conceded that CO2 plays little role at lower altitudes, where water vapor is the primary “retainer of heat energy”, but it is also known that at higher altitudes it is the MAIN retainer of heat energy.

This concentration will lead in rapid order to vast increases in the temperatures in the upper Troposphere, which in turn will radiate downwards to the lower Troposphere, and ground level, causing widespread and rapid warming, which in turn will cause catastrophic weather events, rapid increases in ocean level. and possibly temperatures so high that human life will be difficult if not impossible.

It is a compelling story.  But if you look at the history of the thing, it consists nearly entirely in stories about what WILL happen if we don’t act.  2007, I think it was, was going to be the worst hurricane year ever.  This was convenient, since it happened right after Katrina, which many–with absolutely no scientific basis–blamed on Global Warming.  Needless to say, they were wrong.

In the late 1990’s, and as late as 2009–in the case of that relentless opportunist Albert Gore, Jr.–we were treated to the spectacle of an end to our current interglacial period, since all the ice on both poles was going to melt, and the Ice Ages would come to an abrupt and final end.  This, too, was wrong.

What SHOULD have happened, if actual science were involved, is that an on-going and well publicized watch should have been kept on the upper Troposphere, to see if there were any signs of rapid warming.  As I have said, the air up there is much thinner, so a LOT of warming is needed there, to have any effect on the much thicker air below.  An adjunct to this might have been watching the stratosphere, since rapid cooling is also part of the hypothesis, the idea being that if more heat is trapped lower down, the upper reaches of our atmosphere ought to cool rapidly as well.

I cannot emphasize enough that this whole thing really is a scientifically formatted hypothesis, one which makes clear predictions, which are reliably testable through reliable observations.


And this hypothesis has been falsified.  It is wrong.  There is indeed some warming in the upper Troposphere, and some cooling in the Stratosphere, but not nearly enough.

Irrespective of the “he said, she said” of the methods of the land based temperature gathering, THIS DATA SHOULD NOT BE GATHERED AT ALL.  We know that the Earth heats up and cools down for a variety of reasons, some of which we clearly don’t understand.  That the people at the center of this fraud continue to use very questionable methods–ones fully unrelated and superfluous to the core hypothesis–should tell us all we need to know: they are trying to create an outcome which is unsupported in the place–the upper Troposphere–which really matters.

I am gratified to see Trump pull us out of the Paris Treaty, but I continue to wonder how the rest of the world is so fucking stupid.

Psychologically, many factors are likely at play.  I see often, for example, the claim that “even if they are wrong, humans are still destroying the Earth”.  This may be true, but this claim needs to be debated on its own merits.  And in what respect should any sane person be willing to trust their freedom and well-being to a group of people who have already demonstrated a willingness to use the Big Lie to get what they want?

More commonly and likely, I think many people have an emotional commitment to this idea.  They see global peace and unity and goodwill coming from our shared efforts to combat a global threat.  On some level, they overcomplicate everything, to hide the failure of the idea.

I don’t doubt there are many honest people involved in this, even if they are deluded.

But We the People need to start insisting that these assholes, who suck up so much money from the global economy, stop, shut up, and go home.

Yes, by all means keep an eye on atmospheric temperatures, but the gig is up.

Did you know 25% of all human CO2 production has happened since 2000, in an era, where the only net warming is happening in cooked land-based temperature models?  The poles are doing fine.

This idea needs to die.

I was pondering some things from my childhood I won’t go into here, and the acronym FIST came to me.  It is SIFT rearranged. Yes, there was anger, but that was not the interesting part of it.

I felt something, and went into it.  Then an image appeared, which was followed by sensations, then the thought “oh, so that is what happened.”

As it is usually used, most psychological introspection ends in a thought, because in psychotherapy, particularly, you need to be able to speak what you find, but this is equally true for diaries.

What I have found for myself is that sometimes I will feel a process going.  I don’t know what it relates to, where it is coming from, or where it is going.  Its entirety consists in “that”.  Quite often, I will just let these things play out, hoping that whatever was going on, will be beneficial in the end.  I think this is a good strategy.

True, pure attention is wordless.  Experience is wordless.  We lessen ourselves, I feel, when we feel a compulsive need to communicate even with ourselves in diaries.

One of the ways of dealing with the animal anxieties of life is to simply pretend that one is a recipient, that one plays no active role in what happens, and that certain things are just destiny.  It liberates one from worrying, at least potentially, because worry is an active effort to plan and sculpt the future.  If the future is “written” (Maktub), as many Muslims believe, then there is no point in worry, because there is no point in planning, because things are beyond ones control.

This is in some respects an attractive option.  When I was posting on the squirrel and the beetle, this is roughly what was in my mind.  What will be, will be.  I actually saw a bird yesterday in a job site, which had flown in, and was frantically trying to find an open window.  But the only open windows were on the ground floor, and it kept flying up.  It is likely dead now, unless it was able to detect moving air current from the outside.

And I watched Dunkirk tonight, and thought the same thing.  If you read about the stages of what I will call combat fatigue, in nearly everyone there is a growing apathy and lassitude over time.  The prospect of death loses much of its terror, and most wind up repeating what is likely a very old theme: “when it’s your time, it’s your time.”

Where am I going with this?  Well, somewhere political.  It’s what I do, much too much.

If the creed of true Liberalism is “character is destiny”, then the creed of its retarded substitute is “birth is destiny”.  If you are born white, you cannot redeem yourself, ever, fully.

And think even of Marxist ideas about historical necessity, about the machine-like and automatic, unavoidable “progressions” (which constitute progress because they tell us they constitute progress, even if misery and enslavement is all anyone else can see) of “History”.

What do they do?  They eliminate the need for individual judgement, for individual moral initiative, for worry related to getting things right, rather than very, very wrong.

Such fatalisms serve the role of traditional religions.  They render the individual irrelevant, moot, and ultimately helpless.  This is why people cling so fervently to these horrific ideologies, because losing them would mean losing their primary means of self calming, and unleash absolutely unbearable–for them–anxiety and sadness.

True moral and psychological growth consists, I am persuaded at the moment, both in a decrease in self importance, such that the vagaries of the universe do not come to seem personal, and such that one does not expect to get through life without worry, toil, sadness, grief, loneliness and genuine trouble, but also an increase both in perception and in response-ability, such that one can see better what can be controlled, and what cannot, and make active preparations for the former, and to let go the latter.

How does one wed authentic passion with daily focussed discipline?

To my mind, striking North Korea has to be authorized by Congress. Such a war could unleash a Pandora’s box of disasters, and so requires the assent by both law and common sense of a sizeable chunk of our elected leaders.

At the same time, the more warning we give Kim, the worse it gets. This is obvious.

I have proposed before and will propose again that Trump get the verbal assent of enough leaders to pass muster, plus perhaps a few more in case. A highly secure app can be assigned to each of these people, and if and when he decides it’s time he can broadcast a go/no go to substitute for the substance of an actual vote. Self evidently, not every member of Congress need be consulted. Many of them would betray us and the interests of civilization instantly and with considerable self satisfaction.

The problem with sanctions, which are really the only means of diplomacy, short of China kicking Kim in the balls and telling to straighten up and fly right, is that they only cause suffering and pain for ordinary people. They don’t affect Kim. They don’t affect most of the military or Party leaders. They never worked on Cuba. Given sufficient ruthlessness and amorality, no amount of pain and suffering can have the least effect.

Conversely, the only military way to limit damages to South Korea, Japan, and here, is to dictate the rules of the engagement as fully as possible by choosing the times and places.

I don’t want war with North Korea. It will be horrible. But I also don’t want to have nuclear weapon we could have prevented detonating anywhere in this country.

I keep reading that firing Mueller will provoke a “crisis”.

I would ask a simple question: what the guck are we in now?? Half of Trumps staff is actively sabotaging him, including, apparently, McMaster.  News agencies are calling for his impeachment for anything (charges? We dont need no stinking charges). His ability to govern is severely compromised.

And if folks want to call it a “Constitutional” crisis if he fires Mueller, I would ask how? Why? Where does the illegally appointed, seemingly partisan Independent Prosecutor (Special, whatever it is) show up in the Constitution? Where does the right of bureaucrats to shit on the expressed will of the people show up?

Put practically, how much worse can it get than daily calls for Trumps assassination and impeachment?

Some Gordian Knots are best dealt with quickly and decisively and unapologetically.