Tuesday, October 25, 2016

SAR #16299



The Sausage Factory: Presidents do make a difference, but not nearly as much as you, or they, expect. There is an unelected government that does most of the governing, and the President is pretty much powerless to over-rule it. Sure, bankers and big business, but moreso the military and the national security apparatus. The Pentagon controls congress through immense military programs which let contracts for part of the system to every state and nearly every congressional district – and congressrcritters who don't play along don't get the jobs. The Intelligence and Surveillance squads control the information flow and use it to intimidate the elected government. And then there are those dossiers that they have had since Hoover's day. You think voting makes a difference? Well it does, but not near so much as it should – remember Barack Obama and all the stuff he sincerely hoped to change?
Priorities: Why are we talking about soda taxes and not carbon taxes?
If You Come, They Will Build It: You can count the number of scientific discoveries and technological advances that have not been used on a broken abacus. So don't be all that surprised when genetically engineered humans begin showing up in the neighborhood. They're possible and they're coming and we're not ready.
Half a Loaf: Spain aiming for 100 per cent renewable energy: "Enough wind energy is being generated in Spain to power more than 29 million homes every day, according to one of the country's biggest renewable energy companies." Now to address petroleum...
Lessons in Democracy: Citizens in the Belgian region of Wallonia believe that they have to right to make laws to govern themselves. They also believe that foreign corporations should not be able to effectively repeal those laws. So, being a democracy within the republic of Belgium, they refused to go along with a plan to take the power of self-government away from them.  That killed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada, which provides for Investor-State Dispute Settlement arbitration, in which corporations get to overrule national and local laws. Without Belgium's assent, the EU cannot proceed. Let's hope the Walloons feel the same way about the TTIP and TiSA.
American Roulette: Every day, on average, seven kids and teens are shot dead in America. Only places like Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and cities under ISIS control are children more regularly slaughtered. If this is a 'gang related' problem, then we are all part of the gang.
Noted: The United States is currently engaged in losing five wars – including Iraq and Afghanistan, where Americans are still dying. Don't expect it to get any better under Hillary; it'll probably get worse.
A Parting Shot:

2 comments:

Gegner said...

Today's 'litany of woe' is spot on (as usual) making it all that much more painful.

IF there is to be (hopefully positive) change then it is up to us to ACT instead of complain.

The deadline draws closer, are you ready?

Anonymous said...

regarding, "if you come they will build it."

human beings can't handle power.

the more power an individual or an organization has the more the propensity to do harm.

extreme power must be checked by a power which serves to moderate, to limit.

technology is power....and the technology being discovered to modify our genome, our biology, will destroy us because...we think we can understand...and control this ultimate power...but we can't, because at our core we are arrogant and avaricious animals and not gods.

our advances in technology have always...always... out stripped our advances in psychological development, and culture, society, and ethics.

there is one hope...that is, that the first tinkering with human biology that the techno wizards do, is to tweak to the max human capacity for empathy, kindness, service to others and forgiveness...otherwise we will destroy most of the people on the planet....and the few oligarchs left will ultimately be destroyed by the artificially intelligent humanoid robots who witness our depraved behavior and extinguish the people remaining as an act of self preservation.

michael
olympia