Comcast as Big Brother

In order to get onto the internet, you have to utilize an Internet Service Provider (ISP).  The biggest players in the field are Comcast, AT&T, Cablevision, Time-Warner, and Verizon.  This article deals specifically with Comcast only because they are my ISP provider, but I suspect that the other major ISPs behave in similar ways.  Each time that we utilize the internet our computer, or our network, is identified by an Internet Protocol (IP) Address which is unique to our computer network.  This IP Address is assigned by our ISP provider and although our IP Address doesn't have our actual name and address directly on it, that information is certainly known and can be provided by our ISP provider without our consent or knowledge. 

Clearly, our privacy is under assault and as always it starts with so-called "good intentions" in which the major media companies which have suffered under the loss of revenue from illegally pirated copies of movies, television programs, music and the like have joined forces with the major ISP providers to setup the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) and "through a progressive series of alerts called the Copyright Alert System (CAS), ISPs will make consumers aware of possible illegal activity that has occurred over peer-to-peer networks using their Internet accounts."  If that sounds innocent to you, it certainly isn't in any form or content whatsoever.  Essentially, the biggest media companies in the world want to turn the ISP that you utilize to access the internet against you and thereby to incriminate you by associating your IP address with you as a person.

There are two basic types of warnings that Comcast will issue.  The first warning type which I believe can pretty much be ignored, is the "Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement", in which you are admonished to not infringed upon copyrighted works.  Therefore the first warning type is really just a shot across the bow, however, the second warning type is the dreaded:  "Alert #1: Potentially Improper Use of Copyrighted Material" which is the real deal when it comes to alleged copyright infringement and the alert number which is part of that heading certainly counts against you.  To date, I have received two alerts against me, and you are allowed a total of six alerts under this Copyright Alert System (CAS) before you are subject to some sort of punishment in which the most likely sanction is that your connection speed will slow down to a crawl for some period of time to be determined by your ISP, but the penaltyt meted out to you could be far more significant including fines and termination of your account without notice.

For those law and enforcement types, they may see this all as some sort of well-deserved punishment and necessary enforcement for cheating malcontents, and perhaps it is.  However, the big picture is far, far worse.  Everyone wants to believe that back in the day when letters were actually sent through the USPS that our communications were not tampered with and were treated confidentially except when a federal warrant was issued specifically to open a certain piece of mail.  Fast forward to the present day and virtually everyone in America expects that their activities on the internet, their e-mails, their web views are private but if ISPs are so willing to accommodate and join up with media companies to arrest our activities, how much easier is it for them to justify doing the same thing for patriotic or more sinister reasons for the Government.

What Ever happened to Small Family Farms

Farming today is almost a pejorative term, as if farmers are considered to be so backward, so rural, and so country, that they are by definition completely out of touch with time and modernity.   If that is so, so much the shame for Americans, because this great country was once a nation of farmers and it still is a great nation of farmers.  At the time of our revolution, nearly 90% of Americans were employed in the farming industry.  Most farming back then was subsistence farming, simply providing enough for one's own family to live and survive on, with any extra harvest being stored, bartered with, or perhaps sold.

There are a lot of advantages to small family farms, because it gives those that work the land a sense of purpose, of responsibility, of worthiness, and of self-sufficiency.  That in of itself provides most of the object lessons that you need in order to negotiate life.  While small farms will not have the economies of scale that large farms bring to the forefront, the small farms of today bring tradition, history, sustainability, and are the bedrock and foundation of local economies.  The United States owes a lot to its farmers, and placing an undue burden on them, is not one of the legacies that should ever be permitted.

Laws are ostensibly setup to make things fair, but the FDA consistently makes laws that benefit the big conglomerate farmers as opposed to the small farms.  The fact of the matter is, it is only the big conglomerates that have the money, the legal staff, and the lobbyists that can stay in step with the FDA, so that when laws are passed, they are structured in such a way that the conglomerates will benefit at the expense of the little guy. 

The FDA claims that its rules are put in place to protect the public at large, but these rules are often an unfair regulatory burden on the small farms and a specific unfair burden upon them.  Certainly, health and food safety should be a concern for all Americans, but that concern needs to be addressed almost solely with the big conglomerates and not with the smaller farms. 

The FDAs' belief that one size fits all is something that is not realistic and it's not right.  Large conglomerate farms differ significantly than smaller farms in the following ways:

1.       Chemical fertilizer usage

2.       Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)

3.       Groundwater contamination

4.        Antibiotics

5.       Mandated contract agreements

While there is a lot of be said for the benefits of large farms in the sense that their products provided are often quite cost competitive, there are plenty of negatives that go along with that territory, and that is why it is to our credit that we still have locally owned small farms that provide choice, local employment, variety, and sustainability to society at large. 

Small farmers care about the land, the food that they grow, the livestock that they feed, because they have a direct vested interest in doing so.  Their self-interest benefits us in many ways and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, especially if the government gives them a fair deal and doesn't over- regulate them.

Surrender

One of the key words in the Christian religion is surrender.  It’s a word that people often don’t want to hear, especially in a country in which freedom is held in such high respect and is so prominent, but God doesn’t demand that you surrender to Him.  God only suggests to you that you surrender to Him; this will bring you the peace, the satisfaction, and the love that you seek.

The Christ story is an amazing story because it doesn’t fit in well with our perception of what a King should be all about.  A king who dies crucified?  Like a common criminal?  Christ was no rebel, was certainly no threat to the Roman Empire, nor was he a particular threat to the Jewish religious hierarchy.  There really wasn’t anything about Christ that couldn’t have been worked out.  Christ sought no earthly power; He came to save His people, to bring salvation to the world, and to show that path and that way to the people.  Christ spoke in parables, not to confuse the population, but to give them the opportunity to quietly contemplate and to savor upon his words and their inner meaning, in which their full enlightenment is revealed by God’s grace.  The truths that Christ taught are the timeless and eternal truths that are the foundation of life itself and the cornerstone of understanding God and His wisdom.

Christ’s crucifixion was not only to fulfill scripture, but to show the truth that God, God above all, knows the meaning behind the Passion play.  If Christ merely died a physical death, his life would have been a tragedy and a prime example of man’s inhumanity to man; but as Christ struggled down the path to Golgotha, having been scourged and beaten, and ultimately to meet his physical death by crucifixion, He also was to bring salvation to man.  Christ demonstrated that His sacrifice, should also be your sacrifice, that His surrender should also be your surrender, that in order to be one with God, you must dissolve your will into God’s will.  The body, after all, just encloses the soul; the body by nature cannot escape the ravishing of either time nor of death, nor can it overcome the laws of the physical form.  The soul, however, can either grow towards God or shrink away from God, or even to seek banishment from God.

However, the story doesn’t end with the crucifixion of Christ, as that merely set the stage for the re-emergence of the victorious Christ.  AChrist that could not be vanquished, could never be vanquished, could never be destroyed, could never be silenced, could never be defeated by man’s law.  Christ rose again in three days to fulfill the prophecy and to demonstrate to the world and to all mankind, that complete surrender to God, binds you entirely with God, makes you one with God, makes your soul and spirit entwined with God, so that there is no differentiation, there is only the truth and the love of God.  Only in surrendering to God, can we become truly in one body with God and fulfill our true destiny to be one with God.

Sobriety Checkpoints

I was recently driving when I had to come to a stop because there was about five or six police cars congregated in the same area on the surface street that I was driving on.  I really didn't think anything of it except to believe that there must have been a bad car accident and therefore the police were out in force to direct traffic and to take care of keeping the public safe.  I was therefore quite surprised when an officer approached my window and asked for my driver's license.  Normally, I make it a policy to have my driver's license out of my wallet as a matter of course when dealing with the police as my attitude has always been, I'm not looking to have a long conversation, or to give an officer more time to gaze inside my car, I'm going to hand over to the officer exactly what he is requesting before he needs to request it.  In fact, previously, when pulled over on a summer night, I simply rolled my window down and place my arm out the window with my driver's license in my hand.  It's not like you have a lot of options when you are pulled over.  Anyway, getting back to the story at hand, when I began to reach into my back pocket to retrieve my wallet, the office said: "why don't I check your license plate and verify your registration is up to date."  It wasn't just the words that he said that disturbed me but also the tone of voice, the matter-of-factness and the principle behind it.  If this was in fact, a sobriety checkpoint, which I believe that it was, than the checkpoint shouldn't be an excuse to check all manner of things about me and my vehicle.  As it was, my registration was up-to-date so it was a moot point and I was soon on my way, but this unnecessary stop wasted my time, inconvenienced me, and was nothing short of dealing with a police state mentality in action.

Sobriety checkpoints are a violation of our 4th Amendment rights to be secure in our persons.  If you aren't in violation of any traffic offence and there isn't a probable cause to pull your vehicle over in the first place, you should simply be left alone by the police.  Subjecting citizens to mandatory and arbitrary sobriety checkpoints are an unfair and inappropriate burden upon American citizens and a disgrace to the principles that Americans shed their blood for.  No society will do well that lives in any sort of police state, because once a police state has been formulated, that police state will always find reasons to arrest, harass, or compromised citizens for any reason or non-reason whatsoever.  Police are an instrument of force often used by those that are in power to assert control and dominance over the population, whereas the true purpose of police work is to serve and to protect the general public.  There is no service in treating all drivers as potential criminals for simply driving their vehicle on a public road, and there is no protection for the common good when resources are wasted for such purposes.  A man with a badge who was been given the responsibility to serve and protect the people must honor that principle at all times, even to putting themselves in harm's way, or dishonor their position by violating it.

Multi-national Power

Corporations are in business to make money.  The largest corporations in America are huge and mighty international conglomerates in which they are operating and making money twenty-four hours a day, every day, in countries located all throughout the world.  Corporations typically aren't really interested in what a given sovereign country provides or doesn't provide for its citizens or the nature of their internal politics, except when it comes to their particular business at hand.  Corporations care about themselves, that is their business, and as long as they can continue with business as usual, they are typically satisfied.

But what if a given sovereign nation has issues with a multi-national corporation?  The response by the multi-national corporation depends upon the issues at hand.  Whereas, virtually no corporation has much respect for countries that wish to unilaterally renegotiate contracts that have already been set in stone with a previous administration or whatever, these corporations are typically willing to be accommodative if the public hue and cry is loud enough, or public sentiment is vastly negative towards them, or if they fear that failure will seriously threaten their long-term profits.  

The problem with these "negotiations" between a country that is negotiating for the benefit of its constituents against a multi-national corporation is that the multi-national is vastly more experienced in all aspects of negotiating, including the art of dirty tricks.  Unfortunately, for smaller countries, they often don't have the infrastructure, the sophistication, good democratic principles or the like, to possibly match their wits against the multi-nationals.  Therefore, the result is often a given and well within the cost of doing business, but what if a country sticks to its principles and stands firm against a multi-national?

Perhaps nothing will happen but that is a very long shot.  Nobody likes to be jilted, and when dealing with entities that are the largest, the most powerful, the smartest, the most determined, and the richest corporations that the world has ever known, you typically will not see them go down quietly.  So a few elite people and media within a given country don't want to play ball with a particular corporation, well, that really is no big deal, because if you dig a little deeper there are bound to be other players within the same country that are eager to move up and to make the necessary accommodations to become the new power brokers.

In reality, when a multi-national corporation makes an offer to your country, it isn't going to be the type of offer that you are going to be able to readily refuse.  This isn't a negotiation between equals, and these small sovereign nations are almost compelled to go to bed with one or many of the multi-nationals that wish to exploit their country and their resources.   Whereas years ago, tribute was paid by occupied countries to their vanquishers, today only the names have changed as the concept is alive and well.  Pay tribute to the multi-nationals that control the worldwide economy, the access to money and wealth, or suffer the consequences of banishment and darkness.

Microsoft is Evil

There are a ton of different businesses that someone, anyone, could come up with and as in all business ideas, some will be good, some rather poor, but there are a few that will be real juggernauts.  Microsoft is one of those businesses that makes an incredible amount of money, has impressive jaw-dropping gross margins, and a market share to die for.   While Microsoft is involved in several businesses in which not all of them have been that successful, its core, its raison d'être, is software.  Software is the greatest business model of business models because it is something that is very easy to replicate for practically no cost, and the revenues that one receives from it, can continue indefinitely.

Microsoft is a master at receiving and utilizing patents.  According to Microsoft's own Patent Tracker, Microsoft has over 40,000 patents.  This intellectual property, the patents, and Microsoft's software is how Microsoft makes billions of dollars each and every year.  For instance, most people do not realize how profitable, Android is to Microsoft. Because Microsoft owns the patent to the File Allocation Table (FAT) which is used within the Android cell phone, Microsoft is allocated a payment for each Android phone sold.  These royalty payments to Microsoft, in which the gross margins must be in the high 90 percent, have been estimated to be as large as $3.6 billion dollars for 2013(George). 

The fact that software is patentable, for twentyyears or even longer, and the fact that software patents are fiercely protected, litigated, licensed, and used as a legal form of extortion is troubling.   Patents for software should be limited, severely restricted, and for very short periods of time.  A patent's place is to protect the cost and expenses made by a given entity, and to reward that entity with exclusivity for its investment of time, labor, and money.  In return for this exclusivity or privileges, society reaps the general benefits when innovation leads to breakthroughs or improvements in product development.

However, the continual payment, the continual royalty, and the restriction of access that patents create, are a grand disservice to society at large.  Software companies, software itself, do not, and should not receive lengthy patent protections.  These patents hurt innovation, raise the cost of products, and distort the benefits of capitalism. 

All companies, should have to prove themselves day by day, and should not be permitted to reap royalty payments as a form of tribute as kingdoms did in the past.  Quite frankly, there isn’t any valid reason why Microsoft must be paid time and time again, for code and for software in which they have made back all their monies invested thousands upon thousands of times over.  That certainly isn't fair, that isn't competitive, and that isn’t innovation.  Software patents have become a protection racket, in which the elite shake down the commoners.  It isn't right and it isn't American.  Benjamin Franklin said it best, over 200 years ago, "that as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously”.

Labor Unions

Wars are fought under the principle of divide and conquer.  There is always a lot more power in a group of people, or fellow countrymen, banding together as one in a revolution, in the workplace, or in the public square.  America has many jobs that pay minimum wage or slightly better in which that mass of employees are resigned to the merits of just having steady employment.

The fact of the matter though is that lower paid employees are ignorant as to what they should be making or how that it is even determined.  Consequently, most low paid employees are more of the mindset to accept the offer that is made as being what the market appears to be offering and to accept it with little thought or question.  That, of course, is what big management wants you to think.  They want you to believe that you are receiving in pay all that you are ever able to achieve in pay and that the deal is fair. 

Part of the struggles that unions have in recruiting members is the semantics of the labor battle in the 21st century, in which the opponents support the "right to work" law.  Offhand, right to work, sounds like something that is pro-labor, but in actuality it is a smokescreen and anti-labor union.  A "right to work" law is essentially a direct knife thrust into the belly of labor unions.  States that have "right to work" laws are allowing their unions to weaken under the erroneous contention that employees right to free association supersedes the compulsory payment of union dues and union membership in which collective bargaining has previously determined the rules of the road for employees.  Right to work laws undercut union authority, union monies, and union power. 

While I do have some sympathy for a worker's right to free association, right to work laws, are the wolf in sheep's clothing in which ultimately those that take union jobs but do not contribute to their union through their dues will find after a period of time, that their collective bargaining position to have been severely weakened and therefore exploitable by management.

With the rise and relevancy for social protests of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets, and the fact that real-time organization has never been more cost effective or easier, there is a new opportunity for labor unions to become relevant.  Therefore it is up to the biggest labor unions in America to focus their attention on areas of businesses that are most in need of the power and bargaining strength of labor unions.   If I was to make a suggestion I would concentrate on Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, and McDonald's, our nation's largest fast food employer.   If these two companies were to fall into the union camp, the lesser competitors of these fine multi-national companies would also capitulate. 

Union organizers can ill afford to sit back and let nature take its course.  The labor numbers of the last fifty years have shown a steady and profound erosion of both union numbers and union strength.  If unions want to remain relevant in the 21st century their fight must begin now, it must be well planned, well executed, and absolutely relentless in its purpose.  Unions have been badly outplayed in recent history, yet, still, even today, the fat lady has not sung.

Homeland Security and 1984

There isn't a thing I respect about Homeland Security.  Certainly not the departmental name, nor its utility, nor what it represents.   Homeland security is a colossal waste of the taxpayer's money, it's a disgrace to America and its ideals, and it serves no purpose but to propagandize the American public that if not for Homeland Security we would be in some sort of dire straits.  What absolute bunk!

While the terrorist attack of 9/11 was certainly tragic and unfortunate, it was not an attack on American soil similar to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, in which Japan had a real air force, a real army, a real navy, munitions, monies, and desire to take war to the USA.   The terrorists of 9/11 were very successful in their mission but hardly a continuing threat to our sovereignty, our country, our principles, or our people and haven't been so since 9/11.

George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, was incredibly far-reaching, far-seeing, and prescient, and we owe an deep debt of gratitude to George Orwell for showing us the future that we should be actively opposing.  Unfortunately, though, Big Brother is here today, alive and well in our Department of Homeland Security and Big Brother isn't going away anytime soon.

For our protection we are told that we need cameras so that we can always know what is going on around us, and Homeland Security is quick to point out to us anytime those cameras are successfully used to prosecute notorious criminal acts such as the Boston Marathon bombing.  This is done purposely to send a direct message to the general public that Homeland Security is here to protect us and that we should be grateful for this vital protection.

In America, we are always in a state of war whether domestic or foreign.  For instance, we have the ongoing war against drugs, allowing the United States to continually beef up on more military weapons and personnel in order to protect us and to eradicate this scourge which we have been fighting since 1971.  Our longest international war is against a foreign nation far from home, impoverished, under-populated and destitute, but America keeps fighting Afghanistan year after year since 2001.

Homeland Security delights in selling the story that if not for Homeland Security we would have been attacked again and again by terrorists on our soil with thousands of Americans either lying dead or injured.   Homeland Security would have you believe the lie that because of its monitoring of Americans that it has saved thousands of lives, of terrorist attacks thwarted or prevented.  The more that the public swallows lies such as this, the more lies we will surely get.  While it is conceivable through all of its meddling in private American business, that Homeland Security, may have done something to prevent an attack that in of itself hardly justifies its existence.  If America by its acts, by its laws, by its behavior, no longer is the country of true liberty and the pursuit of happiness, than America has already ceased to exist and is just a shell of its former glorious self.

Homeland Security is un-American, detrimental to Americans, and a disservice to the traditions and honor of America.  It isn't needed and it isn't wanted.  America is too powerful of a nation to collapse from without; our only fear lies within.

Does Mexican Trade Matter?

The United States is bound by two big countries, Mexico and Canada.  Even though Canada's square footage is approximately the same as the United States, its' population pales in comparison though, with Canada's total population of approximately 34 million peoples, is less than California at 37 million.  While Mexico is the 14th largest country in the world, it is far smaller than the United States in both land size and population.  Mexico has about 110 million residents as compared to the United States which has over 313 million residents.

The most meaningful difference between these three countries though is per capita income.  Whereas Canada's per capita income is slightly ahead of the United States, Mexico trails far behind both countries at a mere $10,059 per capita, as compared to the United States per capita income of $51,704.  It is this huge income disparity between our countries and also the fact that within Mexico there is a massive underclass that barely makes enough to live on that creates the desire for the better opportunities that the USA provides.

I do believe that it is fair to say that most Mexicans would prefer to remain within Mexico if they could find the opportunity to make adequate and consistent wages to support themselves and their families.    Mexico currently has a minimum day wage in which in the highest paid out of the three zones, that minimum is about 65 pesos a day which equates to a mere $5 per day.   These low wages and Mexico's proximity to the United States, makes Mexico the ideal place for American companies to utilize for manufacturing.

America should make it part of their national policy to trade with and to work in conjunction with Mexico as much as possible.  A stronger Mexico makes for a stronger America and with America being the largest nation by far in gross national product, we have an obligation to see that our closest neighbor is able to benefit from our size, our power, our money, and our example.

For instance, Mexico should be our #1 import choice for items that because of their size or other reasons are expensive and time-consuming to transport.  Mexico offers the advantages of proximity, cost, and time savings.  Additionally, while working with Mexico to produce finished-goods, because of our respective locations, Mexico will be more likely to use USA items in the creation of the finished products because of our proximity to Mexico which helps our overall trade imbalance.

The United States trades all throughout the world but it is Mexico that the United States should take a special interest in.  It is right next door to us with easily accessible roadways into America, a willing labor force that can be trained and utilized, a population that is underemployed, and desirous of employment.  If Americans are so concerned about keeping Mexicans out of the United States, we need only take the steps to give them opportunities within their own country that will mutually benefit both nations.  

Common Core

Common Core is rotten to the core.  This is government's massive conformity move to take away local school board authority along with parental authority, and replace it with national educational standards that are antithetical to American ideals and its dreams.  This is a nation of fifty states and of numerous communities and cities.  Part of what makes America great is its diversity, its heritage, and its individualism.  It is a wonderful thing for a group of concerned citizens, or concerned parents, or concerned people in general to get together for a common cause and for common needs.  That is part and parcel of what makes a society great, the voluntary getting together of people that aspire to make things better in their community, their schools, and their society. 

I have a lot of respect for local school boards that have not been corrupted by federal monies, or federal grants, or federal interference, but strive instead to do right by the student body that they have been given the awesome responsibility to nurture, to develop and to care for.  The federal government's deep desire in having all states follow the same educational standards is a corrupting power-play to indoctrinate the youth of America, the future of America, to the federal government's way and there is no other way but their way.  That is bad business and bad politics which, if successful will end up subverting the authority of the parents along with marginalizing local school boards. 

The education of one's children has historically been a parental responsibility.  In colonial times, it most definitely was, and home schooling was thereby the norm, in conjunction with schooling created by local government and its own townspeople.  Common Core ignores these historical precedents by believing the lie that one national educational system will work for all of America, all of the time.  If this indeed was true, that one size fits all, in every circumstance, and that therefore this would initiate a new revolution of a brave new world, it would have its merits.  But it's not true, it's a lie.

The federal government does few things right, and many things wrong, partially wrong, or wholly wrong.  Common Core is a mistaken idea, a pathetic reach, and a dangerous precedent, which should be slapped down.  The best education has always been one-on-one, that may be hard to find, and difficult to pay for, but there is no better way to educate a mind than a tutor to a pupil.  The next best educational system is one in which the players have a vested interest in the success of their pupils; which is any school in which there is an accounting that is done concurrent with the education provided. 

As an educational system, any educational system, gets more centralized, more bureaucratic, more about them and less about those that are being educated, the education experience itself disintegrates.  Federal controlled education is one step away from federal controlled groupthink. 

Nobody cares more about your child than you do as a parent.  As a parent, you will do things for your child that no self-serving bureaucrat would even consider doing.  The bureaucrat cares only for himself and the federal government only for what sort of utility that they can exploit from your child.  You, as a parent, care for the content of your child's character.  

Brain Injuries

All of our cognitive thinking comes from our brain, which logically should mean that we should be quite concerned about any trauma or impact directly made to our head.  Our knowledge of head injuries, traumatic brain injuries is increasing and this increased knowledge will benefit mankind as we learn more about the treatment of and prevention of head injuries.

Traumatic brain injuries will impact your life.  For instance, I have a good friend, a family man, with four children, and a steady job, in which he got into a severe car accident and received a traumatic head injury.  Now this same man that I know so well is different, he can't hold a job, and not only that he's become a troubled man and a child molester.  This change in personality could only have come about by his traumatic brain injury as it was not in existence previous to his terrible car accident. 

Recently we have read of professional football players who having suffered from repeated blows to the head have committed violent acts against themselves, against others, suffered severe depression or dementia, and fundamentally their personality has changed over the years.  Autopsy of these players have shown many to have had chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Howard Hughes was once one of the richest and most powerful people in the world, an entrepreneur, adventurer, aviator, film-maker, and ladies man, but for the last thirty years of his life he was a far different man who had become paranoid and eccentric to the absolute extreme.  What possibly could have taken a man like Hughes in the prime of his life and destroyed him from within?

The fact of the matter is that Hughes had many tragic accidents, for instance while filming "Hell's Angels" he crashed in a small plane resulting in a skull fracture.  Later, in 1936, while driving his car he hit and killed a pedestrian.  In 1943, Hughes crashed the amphibian aircraft Sikorsky S-43 resulting in the death of two men and a severe head injury for Hughes. In 1946, while testing the FX-11 fighter plane, Hughes crashed again with multiple severe injuries.

Each of these crashes, in and of themselves, could have cause the traumatic brain injury that Hughes later exhibited.  I am always surprised that so many people are amused by Hughes' eccentricities, but don't consider as to why his personality would have so dramatically changed.  Head trauma can and will change a person's personality so that they are no longer themselves, because they are no longer capable of thinking as a rational man.

Head injuries are trickier to diagnose because the brain is hidden from our eyes.  That is why it is so important to continue to develop the tests and medical equipment necessary to diagnose correctly potential traumatic brain injuries and then to do what is possible to correct this ailment over time.  Unfortunately, the person himself that suffers the traumatic brain injury may not have the necessary cognition to know that they have a significant head injury and it is therefore vitally important that trained medical personnel take the necessary steps to address this issue in a timely and considerate manner.

Why America is Still Great

Sometimes to answer a question you have to take a look first at the opposing side of the issue.  For many people, there is still an inbred belief or perhaps an indoctrination that America is the greatest country in the world and nothing that is shown or said will ever convince these people otherwise.  In that case, you can call these folks true believers, stubborn, obstinate, wrong-headed, or just plain fools.  If the facts say one thing, yet you don't believe them, than either the facts are wrong, or wrongly stated, or misapplied, or your understanding of the word "facts" needs some serious updating.

America is not great for having the highest income disparity in the world, in which a very select elite, have enormous sums of money, while millions of impoverish people own virtually nothing.   In addition, despite this being a democracy, the country is run like an oligopoly, in which a few corporations have a tremendous influence on government policies and corporate governance.   When certain banks are considered to be too big to fail, yet others are allowed to fail, to whom do we owe this discretionary judgment?  Those decisions certainly aren't made by the people, and government bailouts, which essentially take the taxpayers money and reallocate it to industries that politicians and their lobbyists wish to protect or to enhance, are a travesty in whole, and crony capitalism at their core.

America is not great for spending billions upon billions on Defense spending for no logical reason.  There is no country or countries that could conceivably or possibly confront the United States on the battlefield.  Defense spending should be on a precipitous decline but the military-industrial complex will not short-change or short-circuit itself and apparently there is no power or powers within our government that will challenge them.

America is not great for having the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.  Having so many people locked up is so unnecessary because the cost of incarcerating criminals is a high burden on the taxpayer, whereas for non-violent and victimless crimes, technology of today would allow appropriate government monitors to easily track the whereabouts of convicts in exchange for their being released early from their incarceration.

What made America great, why America is still great, are certain people within this country.  It is the people that made America great, not the government itself which seldom understands the very country and the principles for which it stands.  America is great, because of entrepreneurs that have great vision and desire to bring a new vision to the forefront.  America is great, because so many care about the less fortunate amongst us and donate time, money, and wisdom to so many charities and good causes.  America is great because of our freedom of thought, our freedom to pursue our dreams, our freedom to develop our ideas, our freedom to believe in God, and our freedom to not be held back by our class status or race or creed in our pursuit of the American dream.

America is still great because so many still have the courage, the vision, the work-ethic, and the desire to move forward despite or even because of the obstacles in their way.

Was Hiroshima Necessary?

On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the primary target of the scheduled bombing.  On August 9, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki which was the secondary target of the scheduled bombing.  These atomic bombs killed either that day or in the ensuing weeks an estimated total of over 200,000 civilians.  While the bombs did also kill Japanese soldiers and took out some infrastructure, the deliberate and premeditated annihilation of civilians on this scale was unprecedented.

History has told us that if not for these atomic bombs, Japan would not have willingly surrendered and therefore the continuation of the war would have resulted in the death of many thousands more of American soldiers in order to bring about Japanese capitulation.  Logically, and without even a cursory review of historical documents, this doesn't make sense.  Italy had surrendered on September 3, 1943, and Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.  Japan was challenged with a two-front war against the Russians by land and the Americans by sea, so the ending for Japan was already written in the cards.  General Eisenhower stated in 1963: "The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

Additionally, there are two more important arguments in regards to the atomic bombings.  First, there was only a three-day gap between the first atomic bomb and the second atomic bomb.  That gap should have been considerably longer, which would have allowed more time for diplomatic channels to ascertain the willingness of the Japanese to surrender with terms that were acceptable to the United States.  Because of the incredible and horrible destructive power of the atomic bomb, considerations to humanity alone should have necessitated a meaningful cooling off period before the second atomic bomb was dropped.  One atomic bomb, in of itself, accomplished more than enough, there should therefore have been no rush to drop a second.

The second argument in regards to the atomic bombings is the targets of the strikes themselves.  The following cities were either primary or secondary targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki.  Hiroshima had an estimated population of 300,000 civilians with an additional 43,000 soldiers.  Kokura had an estimated population of 130,000 and Nagasaki had an estimated population of 240,000.  While each of the cities had legitimate military reasons to be bombed, the nature of the bomb dropped was so in-discriminatory that the result could only be massive civilian casualties, and therefore none of these cities should have been designated as targets.  Instead, the military should have considered striking against an abandoned Japanese military base, or one of the many small uninhabited islands that surround Japan.

Chillingly though, within this, there is another reason, perhaps the real reason, why not one but two atomic bombs were dropped.  The first atomic bomb was a uranium fission bomb and the second atomic bomb was a plutonium fission bomb.  Japan became, therefore, the de facto real world test site for these different atomic bombs; the civilians killed were victims, and the warning shot was made quite clearly to our future red menace, the Soviet Union.

Warren Buffett

I always get suspicious when everyone loves the same guy, with accolades from virtually every political persuasion and mainstream media.  That just raises alarm bells with me and the only reasonable conclusion that one can come to is that someone like Warren Buffett must be extremely well connected.  And no doubt he is.

It does help that he has an avuncular look, and a sort of "aw, shucks" attitude.  Guys like that are dangerous though, because it's people that look non-threatening that can be the most lethal of all.  The fact of the matter is, while one can see investing and the business world as all sorts of things, I have a tendency to see it as a game in which there are winners and there are losers.  While I will admit there can be circumstances that allow for that win-win outcome, more often than not, one party out-wins the other and to be a consistent and proven winner in this game you're going to have to have a lot of wisdom, experience, savvy, gumption, thoroughness, desire, and probably connections.

Although the media likes to portray that you too can make the same investing decision and deals that Buffett makes this is pure nonsense.  Buffett gets deals done that you and I could never hope to obtain because Buffett has the capital to do the transactions and because Buffett is a superb negotiator. In 2008, Buffett purchases $5 billion of preferred shares from Goldman Sachs along with a 10% annual dividend.  In 2011, Buffett also purchased $5 billion of Bank of America's preferred shares along with warrants for their common shares.  Both of these deals made Berkshire Hathaway a lot of money and neither one of these deals were available to me or you.

The fact of the matter is that Buffett has the type of political connections that allows him to have the confidence to make the deals that he does.  Wouldn't you like to be able to pick up the phone and talk to the President of the United States, the Federal Reserve Chairman, or any of the top executives in the largest corporations in the world?  Buffett is going to get the assurances that he needs from the people that make policy so that he can make the best decision for his company.  Buffett is no country bumpkin, he is the insider of insiders and because his public persona is so low-key, he is the go-to guy to get deals done that quite frankly most other corporations and conglomerates just aren't going to have the flexibility or desire to accomplish.

Warren Buffett is one of the elite, one of the power brokers of the world.  Buffett makes the money, gets the deals, because he is part of the club, a member of the Bilderberg Group and who knows how many others.  Buffett is as establishment as they come, and because of his positive self-image, he can be used again and again to get things accomplished that the power brokers want to get done.  Buffett is the second richest man in the world, he's not one of us, and instead he's one of them that control us.

The REAL ID Act

In 2005, the REAL ID Act passed congress, a law that encompasses many things, but its primary purpose is to provide national standards for the issuance and the presentation of identity for state driver's licenses.  Although there has been an attempt to modify this act through another proposed law known as the PASS ID Act, this act has not been ratified by congress.

Many countries, perhaps a majority of countries have National ID acts.  The United States has two primary sources for ID:  its national social security card and our individual state ID.  The social security card does not have a picture attached to it, nor does it have an address attached to it, nor is it commonly used or is to practical to use for everyday purposes; whereas your state driver's license is commonly used as a form of identity in most everyday business transactions and it is most definitely the primary form of ID used in America.

The problem the federal government has with state issued driver's licenses is that formerly each state had its own peculiar way of issuing requirements needed for an individual to acquire a driver's license, the ID itself displayed on the driver's license varies by state by state, and each state has its ownalphanumeric system for tracking driver's licenses issued.  None of this is surprising given that this is a nation of fifty states, but for the monitoring of its citizens, this is a cumbersome burden for the federal government and therefore unacceptable to them.

The terrorist act of 9/11/2001 was the perfect storm for the government to step forward and insist that we needed national identity standards applicable to all fifty states in order to preclude and prevent future terrorists from being able to readily falsify driver's licenses or to receive them in the first place.  While there may be some truth in the above statement, there is probably more truth in stating, that 9/11 is simply used as the excuse for our national government to more closely monitor and track persons within our country.

This act, in and of itself, is basically a national ID act in which by standardizing state ID, your state-issued driver's license ID willnow be effectively nationalized, since all state databases will now share information across state lines.  As bad as the REAL ID Act is of itself, by compelling all citizens to be within a national database that correlates and combines their address, their social security number, their driver's license number, and their birth certificate, it gets significantly worse with the magnetic strip which is now mandated by the REAL ID act.

It is one thing for some flunky to take a look at your ID before allowing you to purchase alcohol, or to verify your ID before entering a club, or any other of the various mundane and myriad activities that a person does on any given day.  Most people can live with that, and don't have a real problem with providing their ID that proves that they are entitled to what they want to participate in.  Further, unless the person looking at your ID has a photographic memory or a secret camera they aren't going to be able to remember everything about you, so your identify remains semi-private.  However, with the magnetic strip on your ID and the swiping of that magnetic strip on a reader you have just given up your entire ID on your driver's license which has been recorded into a database that has been time-stamped and duly noted.

Perhaps in ten years, maybe less, it will be common to swipe your driver's license in order to enter a restaurant, a bar, a library, an office, and just about any public area.  If you like being watched, if you like being tracked, if you like being monitored like a criminal, you will embrace it. 

If you don't like it, you should rail or fight against it.

The Nixon Shock

On August 15, 1971, President Nixon authorized: "Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the American dollar." What this action did in effect was to unilaterally suspend the convertibility of the American dollar from gold which had been previously pegged at the fix rate of $35 per ounce, and in return this gold convertibility was replaced with the dollar being backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Further, this action resulted in the repudiation of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 and thereby precluded foreign nations from being able to redeem their US Treasury assets into gold.  Consequently, this meant that the dollar had now become a fiat currency and that there was no longer anything holding back the American government from monetary fiscal restraint.

In Nixon's speech, he stated many things of which history shows he was wrong and Nixon probably knew he was wrong at the time he stated them.  For instance, Nixon claimed that the following would happen:

A.    "Halting Inflation"

B.     "American dollar as a pillar of monetary stability"

C.      "International money speculators would lose"

D.    "American dollar will be worth as much tomorrow as it is today"

E.     "Our best days lie ahead"

None of the above is true today and clearly none of the above was true immediately after the Nixon shock.  Anytime one country unilaterally repudiates an agreement, one can expect that there will be some ugly long-term ramifications.  Our global monetary system has been in disarray over the past forty-two years, suffering from erratic and persistent inflation, recession, and the booms and busts of economic cycles.

The average annual inflation rate since 1971 is 4.26%, so that $100,000 in 1971 would be the equivalent of $576.657 today.  Looking at it the other way, $1 in 2013 would be worth a mere $0.17 in 1971.  Whereas, $100,000 worth of gold, priced at $35 an ounce in 1971 would as of today be priced at $1,257 per ounce or the total of   $3,591,428.40.  Clearly, since the deliberate devaluation of the dollar, the dollar has not stabilized, has not been worth as much tomorrow as it was yesterday, has not halted inflation, and our best days look quite troubled, given the massive deficits that the US Government is presently and persistently running.

As for the international monetary speculators, they are alive and well.  In fact, these are the biggest benefactors from our floating exchange rate system.  The international monetary speculators are able to use their size, power, and sophistication to run havoc over third world nations; they undercut their democratic process, they determine how funds are allocated within these countries, they benefit the few and politically connected while punishing the many and powerless.

The dollar today is a fiat currency and it has degraded itself considerably since its introduction as such in 1971.  This is the shell game of all shell games and it can only end badly.  The dollar as we know it will not exist in 100 years.  When the fox is guarding the henhouse, it will only be a matter of time.  The collapse will come, it is inevitable, and it will be terrifying.

The lie that God doesn’t exist

Certain segments within America including the judiciary spend an inordinate amount of time, money, and resources along with producing propaganda espousing the lie that God doesn't exist.  Force-feeding this trope to the American public does a huge injustice to the founding principles of this great republic and dishonors the legacy of those that created through their blood, sweat, and tears this wonderful land of freedom.

That our own government behaves in such a manner is a disgrace to our country, and is clearly worrisome.  Why is it that so many influential people in the government, in the media, and in our universities, want to suppress God and invoke instead the delusion of a paradisiacal secularist society?  The biggest reason is that our government wants to be our god.  The bible teaches us that you can only serve one master, and our government knows this lesson all too well, and further that it can ill-afford to handle the competition.  The government wants you to believe from your inception, that you are created to serve this nation and owe obeisance to no other entity but to it.

However, once God is removed from the public square that massive void has to be replaced with something and that something is big government and media propaganda.  The problem with this very poor tradeoff is that by doing so you have sown the seeds of your own demise.  No country, no matter how great, no matter how powerful, can long survive when it believes that it no longer needs the beneficence or approval of almighty God.

Man believes wrongly in his own mind that he needs no God, that he is no less a god in of himself.  That viewpoint is absurd.  To listen to pundits espouse that they know for a certainty that there is no God, is to listen to total nonsense.  Mankind forgets God when he finds no current usage for Him, or finds that God's moral code to be too constricting, but let man find himself in a situation in which he needs God's help, and how quickly the tide turns.

A country without God is a country without a moral code.  A country that has decayed to "evil be thou my Good," is a world turned upside down, inside-out, and wrong side up.

America wants to be a nation of laws but there is only one law that all law must answer to and that is God's moral law.  There can be no other way.  Man's law vacillates through the sands of time, through corruption, ill-vision, and lesser mores, but God's moral law is the same today, tomorrow, and forever.  God's law is the foundation that any real republic aspires to live up it.  

Destroy the temple of God's law and you have destroyed the temple of your own law.  God is here in every aspect and in every facet of our lives.  He is here, even if we deny Him, ignore Him, or despise Him.  There is and always will be, one absolute: God is and always will be.

The Banks Control America

There is more than one kind of freedom.  There is freedom of thought, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and so forth.  All freedoms are important and economic freedom is of critical importance to an advanced and monetarily rich country such as the United States.  Most of our transactions in America, from our paychecks, to our bills, to our debts and to our assets are made and denominated in dollars.  In fact, take a look at your dollar bills and it states that it is a “Federal Reserve Note”.  But what is a Federal Reserve Note?  These are notes that are printed by the U.S. Treasury at the behest of the Federal Reserve Bank.  But what is the Federal Reserve Bank?  Despite its name, the Federal Reserve Bank is not publicly own, it isn’t run by the Federal government, instead it is own and backed by publicly traded banking corporations overseen by a federal board of governors that are nominated by the President. 

That means that the control, distribution, and the worth of our most essential asset, our money, is held in the hands of entities that do not directly answer to the people, additionally we have little or no influence over them, and further that their interests are not in alignment with our own.  These bankers, these elite, implement policies and goals that are to their benefit and wholly without real regard for our own, these elite bankers fulfill their lust for power and money, and their only interest in the common people is their successful exploitation of them to their maximum benefit.

While it is conceivable that the people’s desires and the bankers’ interests can be in alignment with each other and consequently not necessarily diametrically opposed to one another, that isn’t of any real concern to the bankers.  The bankers and the powerful organizations and executives that work with them are the chosen in which their only real interest is in furthering their own.  A government of the people, for the people, and by the people is not what the bankers are about.  It is important and critical that the people are kept under wraps, ignorant of their true power and purpose, and subservient to the masters that wish to control and indoctrinate them.

You might well ask, how that is so few, so very few, can control so many.  But isn’t that the entire history of the world?  Certainly, one way to keep the people at bay is to control their economic value, and their worth.  There can be no worse slavery for an educated and hard-working man than to be diligent for all your life and to find that in the twilight of your career, that your money, and your net worth has turned into essentially nothing making you effectively a serf of the state.  For recent examples of this, you need only look at Zimbabwe, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia in which each of these countries had within the last twenty years, monumental meltdowns of their monetary system.

Can a monetary meltdown happen here?  It has already started, look at the massive inflation that the United States had in the years 1979-1981 in which the most powerful country, the economic foundation of the world, had inflation rates of double-digits for three straight years!  Fast forward to present times and although our nominal inflation rate is low, the country is running massive deficits, and has an admitted national debt of over $17 trillion, with some pundits putting our actual national debt at $70 trillion or even more!

When the chickens come home to roost in America, you can rest assured that the powerful elite of bankers will profit enormously from blood in the streets and panic in the air.  The losers will be the people that worked diligently and hard to create the wealth and had it unjustly snatched from them through sophisticated financial legerdemain.

Siege warfare

When you are the most powerful and most feared country in the world with a military that is so far superior, so far advanced, so entirely complete, as compared to any other country, than there are a multitude of ways to conduct your military business.  While there is a lot to be said about simply facing your enemies and doing battle, there are other alternative ways which will cost both sides less in military personnel, civilian casualties, and military armaments.  A siege is a type of warfare that should be employed as often as it is available.  A siege properly conducted will save significant lives on both ends and is probably more humane than virtually any other alternative.

Because modern military units need access to shelter, food, and energy, taking away or impacting the enemy's access to any of these will significantly weaken them.  The type of engineering and forward thinking needed to perform these actions is well within the capability of a country like the United States which prides itself on assembling thorough and complete information.  While there are legal protocols in regards to what actions are or are not allowed in regards to siege warfare and the treatment of civilian populations, none of them are game stoppers.  The object of any siege is to vanquish the enemy by putting them into the unenviable position in which although their defensive position may be strong, they are not strong enough to attack and further they do not have the means to self-sustain themselves over an extended period of time. 

Performing a naval blockade is extremely effective in tightening the grip on recalcitrant countries.  On land, access to roads can be stymied, communications disrupted, and the like.  The objective is to get the defender to surrender without having to actually go to battle.  Siege warfare may be slow but it is also steadily effective, like a snake applying constriction. Sometimes the enemy is reluctant to recognize the futility of their situation, but an unrelenting reality will often bring clarity.

Siege warfare can also be analogous to hostage negotiations, in which you have a significant risk that innocent civilians will be hurt or killed if the paramilitary unit or equivalent was to go in with full force in which they will be trying to simultaneously protect the hostages while also taking out the bad guys.  Sometimes that is the only choice that can be made but that choice often comes with unfortunate collateral damage.

When you are in the superior position, most of time there isn't any real pressure on you that something has to be done, right then, right there.  Take away easy access to items that humans need to survive on and capitulation will come.  History has shown again and again that when the opposition loses their ability to sustain themselves, they will eventually submit.  Anytime that you can get the enemy to walk away from their entrenchments and to surrender their arms without having to do battle with them, you have succeeded in your primary mission which is to neutralize the enemy without unnecessarily endangering your forces or civilians.

Open Borders

In 2010 about 73% of deportations or "removals" as the U.S. Dept of Homeland Security prefers to call them were Mexican citizens.  That statistic isn't surprising as we share a border of nearly 2,000 miles with Mexico and the Mexican economy can't hold a candle to the United States.  The United States is still seen as the beacon of hope for impoverished Mexicans, perhaps slightly less so in recent years, but the beacon remains quite bright.  It isn't surprising, and I would call it human nature, that if you live in a country in which the opportunity to make a living and provide for your family is suspect that you would want to at least consider other possibilities, rather than a life of abject poverty.  Additionally, ten states of our present Union were either all or in part, once owned by Mexico.    Our two most populous states, California and Texas, were originally part of Mexico.   Some might argue, that's past history and not really relevant but history is always relevant and should be taken into account.

Give credit to Canada, the United States, and Mexico for signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which was implemented in 1994.  This agreement essentially removed tariff barriers between these neighboring countries and thereby created a "free market" economy between these three North American countries.   The removal of tariffs not only reduced the cost of goods between countries, it also reduced paperwork and bureaucracy.  If the NAFTA agreement is good enough for economic reasons and benefits for all countries involved, why not take the next logical step and open up the borders between neighboring countries so that people can more easily traversed from one country to another.

The net benefit for these countries would be tremendous as there is no better trade partner than your immediate neighbor.  Take, for instance, the example of Germany in which they were torn asunder in the aftereffects of World War II in which for the first time in its history there was an arbitrary border and distinction between West Germany and East Germany.  This division into two separate nations lasted from 1945 through 1990.  Since their reunification in 1990, East Germany has modernized at a rapid rate to which its current productivity is about 80% of the former West Germany, and although their salaries are about 20% less than present-day West Germans, the former East Germany productivity in whole surpasses all other previous Communist countries in Eastern Europe.

Of course, Germans speak the same language and have been united for most of their history, but here in America, this country has acted and behaved in a bi-lingual way for a number of years.  The fact of the matter is a more prosperous Mexico would be a net benefit for all parties involved.  The more that Mexico can become a true partner with America, the greater our security, our freedom, and our mutual strengths.    Mexico has great wealth and wonderful potential which Uncle Sam can help to develop.

While campaigning for the Presidency in November, 1979, future President Reagan said: "…any person with the courage, with the desire to tear up their roots, to strive for freedom, to attempt and dare to live in a strange and foreign place, to travel halfway across the world was welcome here."  I wholeheartedly agree with his sentiments and would love to see the United States live up to its ideals and to welcome into our land all those that desire to be part of this Promised Land.