Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Bassett Hounds



As we await The Second Greatest Show on Earth  (the first, of course was also a circus) via the pending public release of two slides allegedly, maybe, might just be showing pictures of UFO aliens photographed somewhere around the 1940s, I started wondering.  I wondered, if May's anticipated sideshow slide show in Mexico somehow turns out to provide little more than another boondoggle around the neck of serious UFO research, what's next?  If a disappointed audience shrugs off the grand unveiling for reasons either valid or not, will public attitude, particularly in the United States, pound another nail in the UFO investigative coffin, supplemented by a laugh or two?

Reluctantly, I've become accepting of observations that an explosion of drones in the sky will further doom that portion of UFO research which lacks funding and extended scientific involvement in the U.S. -- which bodes not well for private UFO organizations.  This, along with an increasingly secretive government, routinely unwilling to part with information, or even to acknowledge the existence of various documents and incidents, certainly won't help.  Sadly, we in America have reached a point where we seem little more than societal anathema to some of those sworn to serve the public interest.

Meanwhile, UFO lobbyist Stephen Bassett and others, long itching for UFO "disclosure," appear, disturbingly, to be pinning their hopes on what some assume will be a hands-down win for Hillary Clinton as president.  Bassett, concluding that election advisor John Podesta's recent UFO comments infer a possibility that Clinton would blow the lid on government UFO files, is quoted in  Mother Jones  of April 3:  ". . .it's already been announced publicly that (Podesta) is going to be a key adviser to the heir apparent to the White House, the de facto candidate. . ."

The  heir apparent?  I hold no ill will toward Bassett, but to prognosticate as the 2016 winner a member of the Clinton dynasty whose accomplishments in government add up to a pretty definite zero is disheartening, to say the least.  I can only speak for myself, but to look upon Clinton with a narrow view, embracing her only because she might influence UFO "disclosure," takes us down a very rocky road.  We can bring up Benghazi, the e-mail controversy, foreign financial donors and her involvement with helping cause chaos in the Middle East with Obama's terribly (criminally?) engineered "Arab Spring," certainly -- but anybody who remembers Hillary Clinton's dismal performance last time she participated in a presidential candidate debate should realize instantly that this failed "public servant" is a disaster for all seasons.  Whether practicing incompetency as Secretary of State or cruising along blandly as a U.S. Senator from New York prior to that, H. Clinton is and was no national heroine.  Stephen Bassett's obvious emotions of shock and awe over the mere possibility that he could commence lip-smacking if a Hillary Clinton presidency emerged  -- based only upon a slim chance that government UFO files would be exposed for all the world to see -- provide, in my humble opinion, a really, really unfortunate reason to drive down the busted and fragmented Clinton highway.

Don't get me wrong, I have always been a proponent for a scientific UFO investigation and public release of relevant government files, but sometimes my mind wanders to places unanticipated.  For instance, hundreds or thousands of years after all the information we foolishly store on electronic media has faded away, wouldn't it be a hoot if whatever critter succeeds humans explores Earth's "ancient" libraries and finds, foremost, remnants of books written by UFO contactees -- those denizens of bonkers land who distorted, yet raised the UFO issue long before science would even begin to dirty its hands with the subject?  Despite the arduous efforts of serious UFO researchers, I could imagine explorers of the future -- whether the hybrid descendants of humans or visitors from elsewhere -- discovering the "works" of George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, Buck Nelson and other contactees of the era, and coming to a very puzzling, but apparent and quite erroneous conclusion regarding public knowledge and impressions about the UFO subject.  Fair-haired maidens from Mars?  Travelers from Venus?  Yes, indeed, explorers of the future may assume that our solar system was a busy little social club during earlier times -- though total fiction, thanks purely to the fact that science avoided the UFO issue and allowed the contactees to be first on the planetary block to claim ownership of the phenomenon.

Hillary seeks the zombie vote.   Frankly, we can't imagine anybody else who would vote for Hillary Clinton, knowing what we do about her.  But she, the ossified candidate, made the announcement Sunday, preceded in days past by questions such as, isn't it time for a woman to become president?  Yes, it is, but not you,  H.R.C.  She had her chance last time, she blew it in the debates -- and will likely repeat her incompetence during the next series of debates.   I once admired the Clintons, but a Clinton political dynasty, like a Bush political dynasty, performs no favors for the U.S. voter.  Both Hillary and Jeb need to go away and maybe volunteer at animal shelters or something.  At any rate, Hillary's subdued announcement via the social network signifies one more social disease inside the tent of a faded clown show.

New free UFO books online:   The free online books section at nicap.org (see link) has added two exceptional books of the past from Richard F. Haines, in .pdf format.  I’m very pleased about these additions because Haines is solidly on the side of science, and I respect his work enough to have previously reviewed each volume for  Pursuit,  journal of the now very, very defunct Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU).  “Free” is an exceptional bargain here, and you should find the other books listed of interest as well.

Tattoo who?   Hey, great news!  The Army will now allow tattoos in places where military folk couldn't have them before, though the face and other minimal areas remain off limits.  Who should have tattoos?  People enamored with the fact that police agencies the world over love tattoos, allowing speedy identification of perps via creative body artwork. 

The Rolling Stone rolls into a lawsuit.   Having dealt with editors as a writer myself, editors who sometimes irritated me simply because they were doing their jobs, it's almost beyond comprehension that  Rolling Stone,  right down the line, failed to fact-check an incredibly horrifying story of campus fraternity rape at the University of Virginia that didn't happen.  Adding to this outrage, various feminists and barnyard chicken cluckers defend the situation, pleased in blissful ignorance that it somehow brings focus to the issue of rape on campus.  Rolling Stone,  a magazine I once subscribed to and read for years, is poised to be sued, and sued its responsible parties should be.  We wonder if a little part of this scandal's birth relates to an attempt to resurrect interest in a magazine industry in rapid decline.

Good cops, bad cops, psycho cops, just cops:   We live in troubled times, while law enforcement personnel on the streets dwell increasingly in a world of public nightmares.  Some of this relates directly to a race-baiting Dept. of Justice exploding out of control under Obama and Holder, an influx of border-jumping criminal trash and a general attitude among those who care nothing about law and order that the time is right to raise hell.  As never before, cops live on the edge, and for a suspect of any variety to fight, run away or cause a disturbance when pulled aside by an officer of the law is a dangerously careless idea.  This is an era when split-second decisions are made by cops and, unfortunately, on rare occasion responses by police turn out to be reprehensible.  Nevertheless, though many believe cameras and other recording equipment will make law enforcement better for suspects, the downside is that cops will have one more object to carry on their uniforms and one more reason to linger over making a hair-trigger decision -- thus putting their own lives in danger -- of  should I or shouldn't I?  Cops, our only neighborhood barriers between the daily good and bad. We hope never to have to ask, why would anybody want to be a cop?  In the meantime, we suspect that those who currently shout the loudest against police in general have a little something of a personal agenda.

He doesn't care how you remember him, as long as you remember him.   President Obama seems ever so rushed to sweep up a legacy, and if he can't do it with Iran he'll try Cuba, hazards notwithstanding.  Iran's ayatollah and its other radical Islamic criminals who brutally keep the Iranian people under their vicious thumb, while obviously determined to destroy Israel and targets of opportunity with nuclear supremacy, have already performed a backstroke on an agreement, certain to make Obama and Kerry look like fools.  Cuba?  Yes, it's time for changes, but I can't get away from watching video of Obama shaking hands with Raoul Castro, pondering how much happier Obama might be if Venezuela's Chavez were still alive and in attendance.  Somehow, the three would look so -- so  natural  standing together, all kissy-face, with so much in common as leaders of three subdued populations.   We sure hope Barack Obama feels comfy with his eventual legacy of horrors, thrills, chills or absurdities because he may be the only one experiencing the warm and fuzzy.  But we'll hope for the best.