Waking Nightmares #6739: Lenses in Space

The "Green Hallucination" that is beginning to pervade society is for the most part harmless rhetoric. The dangerous part is that we can take some bright idea concocted by a scientist hungry for grants and parlay it into a world-saving measure.
An illustration of this was recently telecast on the Discovery Channel in a show entitled "Space Sunshield." The description states "Scientists consider shading the planet with mirrors to deflect sunlight and protect against global warming." In matter of fact, most of the individuals shown in the Discovery Channel feature might be charitably described as "fringe players," and I was actually somewhat relieved after watching it, realizing that few viewers -save the most credulous- will be buying this.
At our present state of knowledge, trying to block the sun's rays has an equal probability of precipitating us into the next phase of the million-year Ice Age (Pleistocene), where we live in balmy interglacial period. Scientists are in agreement that it's only a matter of time before the next glaciation occurs. The last time, an ice sheet a mile thick covered a good bit of the Northern Hemisphere, which is where most land animals (including us) live.....because that's where most of the land is.
Any consideration given to implementing such a project absent far, far more research is worse than criminal, and could literally be genocidal. On the other hand, those who advocate voluntary human extinction may support this.....

Just Like Magic

We abruptly have commercials on national TV for "NORML," an organization seeking the instant high ground portraying marijuana use as "norml." It's really obvious we've entered a time when all sorts of people, having had all manner of extravagant promises made to them, are now in "collect mode." No questions about the ramifications of all this......it's going to save our economy, clear out the prisons, rectify yet another of the thousand thousand historical injustices that translate into "keeping us from doing whatever we bloody well want."

Bertolt Brecht wrote that the motto of The City of Mahagonny was "Do it."

How Far Can You Stretch It?

Now it appears that Newsweek has decided that Obama is not all that far from having RNC headquarters burglarized, or lying under oath, etc. We can evidently look forward to viewing his choked-up farewells to the White House staff soon, as he and Michelle board the Marine helicopter. No doubt in a few years the last U.S. helicopters will lift from the roof of our embassy in Kabul.

Is Newsweek magazine so short of formats for a story that they compare the counter-terrorist effort in Afghanistan to Vietnam? At the risk of answering my own questions, the answer to that is pretty clearly "no."

That being the case, it's only logical to ask......what, then, is Newsweek's true motive in doing this? They even undermine their own headline -and in the very first sentence- by stating "The analogy isn't exact." The only thing I can conclude is a publication characterizing itself (eponymously, even) as a news magazine attempting to mask a hidden agenda, blatantly intended to pressure the President to order our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Is Newsweek now merely acting as a mouthpiece for the more left-leaning of the President's constituency? Answer at 11......

Perspective as a Substitute for Hysteria

In recent posts, I have complained about the snowballing trend in the media to conflate fact with adjective, and that any sense of perspective prior to 4:30 last Wednesday afternoon is receding at light speed. I now advance several positive reforms in reporting to counteract these trends.

1. Indicate not only figures expressed in current dollars, but also in constant dollars. Current figures given, e.g. $(trillions and trillions) could be followed with a symbol, say, something hardly used like: "※," that would stand for constant 1932 dollars (or 1968, or whatever....thus "trillions and trillions" becomes "millions and millions" or just ※ 9.98.

2. Create a perspective index for all weather reporting. The symbol "§," (which kinda looks like a hurricane anyway) could stand for "We really don't have facts & figures to support theories such as 'super-hurricanes' that might occur, because actual weather data, including hurricanes, only goes back to 1895, which means that our projections are not only worse than conjecture, they're just fantasies."

3. The symbol "仝," when applied to reports on volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like, could stand for "We've said this horror will overtake you someday, but not only do we have no real idea when, we have nowhere else to suggest that you might go. And, no, you can't come and live with us here in the studio."

4. We might address the sporadic reports of some sort of Armageddon (whether by Biblical prophecy, Nostradamus, the Mayan Long Count calendar, nuclear war or the examination of entrails of the reporter's recently deceased guinea pig) by " 〆," signifying "Disclaimer: while we've done our best to scare the crap out of you, and want to take any credit for giving you sleepless nights, naturally we can take no responsibility for the actual occurrence of any such horror upon humankind. We will, however, fully warrant our prediction that in 12 billion years (±200 million) the sun will expand into its red giant phase and leave the Earth a burned-out cinder.....so worry about that."

A Crisis Based on Fantasy?

Heard this morning on NPR- an interview with a individual whose profession is analyzing the domestic and international financial markets, discussing the level of "bad mortgages," which we have had drilled into us Lo! these many months now.

I have organized his discussion into a sic et non set of "Myth vs. Fact."

Myth: "There are trillions in bad / unrecoverable mortgages."

Fact: There are only about eight (8) trillion in total mortgages in the entire U.S.

Myth: "The level of bad / unrecoverable mortgages is a large percentage of the total."

Fact: It's about two (2) percent. Ninety-eight percent (98%) of all mortgages are currently being paid on schedule (not in arrears).

Myth: (From question by NPR interlocutor) But aren't there trillions of these "new" and very risky financial instruments used to compile mortgages for sale in the market?

Fact: There are about two (2) trillion worth of these sorts of instruments total, worldwide.

I would like to advance the following in the form of a debate proposal:

Resolved: We have no basis for even knowing if we are becoming "the tribe that lost its head," if we cannot determine what is and is not factual in the media.

My only weapon against this is a distrust of all media -all- that grows deeper every day.....and that's not a good place to be, either.

Ron Obvious Goes Overtime on Fox!

Fox News reported today that a woman who entered a polar bear habitat at feeding time was bitten by the animal.

"Monkey sat out on a limb
Watchin' the crocodiles learn to swim
Crocodile came right up for air
Now there ain't no monkey there."

- Anon.

One's as much news as the other.......

All hail Grummet!

For most, the close encounter with government that April brings is a brief view into the festering maw of the IRS via Tax Day. This year, I've had a trifecta beyond that...... and I can't claim the taxes, since I don't do 'em.

I turn 65 so I had to go through the Social Security interview, a polite excursion into Kafkaland. A forty-minute phone conversation later, and numberless questions important enough to ask, but to which I was assured repeatedly I needn't know the answers. On the other hand (I think that's three hands, so far......) I was informed both at the beginning and end of the conversation that the penalties of perjury apply. The good news (I think) is that I received a letter in the mail yesterday telling me that I'm a proud card-carrying member of Medicare.

Then there is an ongoing brushfire war with the VA, what we grew up calling the Veterans' Administration, but is evidently officially yclept the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Their motto: "You can't call us on the phone." The 800 number exists, and picks up immediately to a mechanical voice that says, in paraphrase: "We're too busy to come to the phone, so why are you bothering?" To give them a little credit, they do say that you can go to their Internet site with your questions. After going through several cycles of question & answer on the VA web site spanning a month and a half, I think the motto should be changed to: "We'll answer your questions in less than a week, but don't plan on anything either informative or relevant."
Without detailing ad nauseam, after seven months with a pending claim application with the VA for my Mother, it was denied....because we had filled out the wrong forms. Return to "GO," do not collect $200; start over.

Now I have fallen afoul of the Farm Service Administration, because we have the misfortune to own somewhat over three arable acres that we sharecrop with a local farmer. The FSA decided to generate a whole new registration system this year, which means a whole new sheaf of paperwork to be filled out, and deforestation proceeding apace. I mailed them in without the slightest conviction that they have been filled out correctly.

Ye shall know Bureaucracy by the signs given above, and by the Fifth Horseman, in this case riding one of paper. I've never been much for Hegel, but it convinces me that our stage of History is about done, and it's time for Grummet (aftermath). Could it all happen that quickly? Could the acceleration that is mentioned frequently in all other phases of contemporary society also accelerate the movement back to Chaos? I'd rather not find out.....but may not have a choice.

Age of Adjective

It seems impossible in the first decade of the 21st Century -and in any arena of public utterance- to avoid the use of the most extreme adjectives in either writing or rhetoric. All phenomena are "terrifying, devastating, phenomenal, etc....just fill in any extreme adjective you know. As a result, the language becomes debauched....or perhaps I should just resort to the tamer "corrupted." What recourse have we to our word-hoard when we have spent all our bolts? Will we need to abandon English, that most flexible means of expression, simply because our enormous vocabulary has been rendered unidimensional by our own misuse?

I hereby hope these musings are merely rhetorical......

.....before breakfast.

While we are told by the media that the First Lady is busy "enchanting Europe," her husband is engaged in "town meetings," throwing out the same sort of content-free howlers that seem to be more and more common in this administration.

"....a world free of nuclear weapons."

"....The U.S. is changing, but Europe must change too."

"....reaching out to all Muslims who seek peace."

This of course is on what CBS calls his "world tour," which consists of the U.K., France, and Turkey. I've been to more European countries on what I call a "trip."

My best response to this was written by Lewis Carroll:

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

- the Queen, Alice in Wonderland.