UFOs: I honor the passing of physicist and UFO researcher Stanton Friedman. As I recall, I only had one contact with Friedman, when I wrote him years ago about something now forgotten, and his brief response included publicity material about his lectures, writings and (I think) his movie. Some researchers found his easy acceptance of issues such as MJ-12 problematic, but in general his tendency to match his UFO knowledge with a comprehensive scientific education and background was much appreciated.
Not to take anything away from Friedman's legacy, but I've been around too long to watch people such as George Noory refer to Friedman over the years as "the grandfather of ufology" without scratching my head and saying, Whaaaaat. . .? Obviously, there were UFO researchers and investigators, now long deceased, connected with serious UFO studies prior to Friedman's public entry into the UFO quagmire. To place some nebulous mantle of authority and longevity on any one researcher may sound great on radio or TV shows, but in the long run I believe it's far better to reward (or condemn, and you know the names) one and all equally.
That's why (Warning: Here comes the blasphemy) I've never put a lot of interest in most UFO conferences, grandiose affairs where participants offer kind words and awards to one another. What do they really accomplish, other than becoming more and more an entertainment vehicle as years pass? Has anybody at these affairs ever solved the UFO issue? Of course not. But these spectacles look great on posters and in media reviews (and god help anybody set upon by reporters harboring no intentions of serious reporting). Hotels, restaurants and hawkers of often questionable UFO "literature" become at least as important as the events themselves, and then what do you have?
The exception, in my view, is the sort of thing Robert Hastings has presented, spotlighting former military personnel willing to put their reputations on the line when they describe UFO activity over nuclear missile bases. When people actually have something to say, contributing more than a party atmosphere and endless lectures of no significant consequence to the UFO research arena, that can be a very positive turn of events.
Nevertheless, true to the pattern, one by one UFO researchers die off, unrewarded with a solution to decades of work accomplished, and that, like life itself, just seems so unfair. Do I expect real answers before I shuffle off to the great blogging void in the sky (or underground, take your choice)? Nah.
LED light: Who saw this coming? Just as LED light bulbs and backlighting become all the rage internationally, here comes a new study from French government scientists, warning that a good share of the LED light spectrum has the potential to inflict serious optical damage, especially upon the eyes of children and teenagers. That old devil ultraviolet apparently plays a significant role. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to consign those tungsten filament bulbs to the trash can after all. Thomas Edison would be proud.
Unions manipulate the kids: Rebecca Friedrichs, for 28 years a teacher in California's public school system, warned in an op-ed for Fox News a few weeks ago that teachers' unions constantly pour money -- union dues -- and effort into the far-left indoctrination of impressionable young minds in the classroom. That is, we suggest, the really crazy, nut-hatched stuff harboring no reason whatsoever to show up in class. We love the rare but no longer unlikely public appearances of school teachers sick to death of union interference in policy.
China behind the smiles: As the Trump administration continues to consider China's spy technology a deadly serious factor when the issue of cell phones and other communication formats comes up for discussion, the surfacing of Chinese dissident writer Liao Yiwu could hardly be more welcome. Warning that his nation is a threat to the whole world, the author of a new book entitled, Bullets and Opium, (published in France and banned in China) offers accounts of the horrors of Tiananmen Square, when the Chinese military slaughtered thousands of protestors. His ultimate desire seems to be a hope that growing superpower China eventually breaks up into a number of countries to deter global war and conquest.
Which reminds us of Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Joseph Dunsford's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee recently. Dunsford strongly excoriated Google for working with China and consequently benefiting its military. Peculiarly, as Google buddies up with China in an assumed pattern of darkness, it refuses to work with the Pentagon on crucial U.S. defense projects. Is this really a mystery, though, in this or any entity populated by far left dogma intent upon globalization at any cost? (Update: Google has reportedly just backed off with helping China, surely a positive development if true).
Two darlings of the left, solar panels and wind turbines, may be causing big trouble for farmers, according to the Daily Mail Online. Protesting French farmers, discovering hundreds of cows dead in the absence of disease or other usual possibilities, apparently found that solar panels and wind turbines were releasing large amounts of energy into the ground, negatively affecting cows (whom, as we recall, wear no protective footwear from the local shoe store) to the point of demise.
How refreshing -- we thought the only victims of "clean" energy were millions of birds killed annually by reflective solar panel oven-like heat and wind turbines capable of shredding bird bodies like paper dolls. The more the merrier.
Diagnosing the mental snake oil practitioners: Well, here we go again. This time, out of Baltimore, a Johns Hopkins University study strongly suggests that up to HALF of people diagnosed with schizophrenia may only be experiencing anxiety! Honestly, from one day to the next I have enormous difficulty determining which side of the psychiatric couch needs the straitjacket. I guess the ultimate determination on this issue will involve who makes the most money off medicating patients into oblivion -- the schizo drug companies or the anxiety pill pushers? In related news, apparently there exists a dramatic shortage of mental health professionals to help vulnerable children and others believed to require a mental tune-up. Wait, just hold on a minute -- isn't that what they do in Scientology? Problem solved!
Impeaching Trump: We wonder how long it will take the Democrats to figure out that they have nothing to offer in 2020 except endless investigations of Trump and his family? Some suggest that the party will self-destruct if this continues. Not that the Republicans are geniuses, because. . .
. . .aside from Amash (R) shouting IMPEACH. . .
The Republicans are tempting a dig into their own electoral graves by jumping on the ban-abortions bandwagon. How many times have we been told that Roe vs. Wade is "settled law?" A year and a half before elections, for the Republicans to take another stab (no surgical pun intended) at dominating women's decisions on this delicate matter doesn't seem very smart. Of course, the idea is for the Supreme Court to revisit the legislation -- but should this happen, we predict that the very most the Republicans will get is an end to third term abortions where a fetus becomes or nearly becomes a live baby birth. To wish for an end to every scrap of Roe vs. Wade legislation in the shredder would seem an overzealous expectation. The religious right, whose extreme practitioners probably assume people like me are destined for hell nonetheless, isn't always a great match for the Republican Party. But what do I know, I'm an Independent. More or less.
Today's visual -- yes, we were thinking of illegal immigrants, the criminals importing our own destruction and gobbling up national wealth as they march like fire ants over our border. Democrats, I hope hell exists, for your refusal to act has put your own (legal) U.S. neighbors in economic and medical peril.
