Bits and Pieces for June 2017

Hawking, Hawking, Hawking -- see what happens?  You make a movie about somebody and he thinks he owns the universe.  Now, Stephen Hawking warns that Earth will be overpopulated and pretty much wrecked in a few decades, insisting that humans must colonize Mars.  My question is, why -- so we can export our trashy ways to yet another unsuspecting planet?  And just exactly who will be The Chosen to set up new digs as the Martian atmosphere is somehow rejuvenated and pumped back into, at least, a favorable existence?

Suggestion:  No lawyers!  Because ambulance chasing won't be fashionable for quite some time on Mars, about the only affairs lawyers can pursue initially will be land claims, simple wills for pioneers guaranteed to perish under harsh conditions AND those damnable class action lawsuits.  You think you're any more likely to get tort reform on Mars than on Earth?  Skip the suit-and-tie encumbered humans and opt instead for killer robots to settle legal disputes and contractual matters.  Eventually, I suppose chapters of the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center could go to Mars, but leftist attorneys must be accompanied at all times by killer robots, the ultimate case-by-case determinants.

Apparently, Hawking believes our species is out of control, and I agree with that.  I'm still much too conflicted about the human-caused climate change issue (climate is climate, changing always without our assistance) and because the scientific "consensus" is not a consensus.  Scientists are not "all in" on the cause, but the international political agenda driving this monster sure is.

However, it doesn't take much more than open eyes to witness our environmental crimes down here on the surface, be it water, land and forest abuse, animal abuse or, yes, human overpopulation.  Voices assuring us that all the humans in the world could fit in some U.S. state fail to add that each of those will require a substantial amount of acreage to be self-sustaining throughout a rather cramped lifetime.

Once we finish decimating animal populations as we destroy rain forests and other crucial land areas to accommodate growing numbers of humans doomed to have no function or place in society, should we really take an unstoppable human fornication circus on the road to Mars so we can repeat our stupidity all over again? 

Of course, we may well have come from Mars, anyway.  If so, did we leave any bad habits there last time around?  Were I a member of the first human Mars expedition, first thing I would do is get out a shovel and dig for evidence of beer bottles, candy wrappers and condoms -- sure signs of ancient human activity on the red planet.

Camille Paglia, author and university professor, always highly opinionated in her contacts with the media, appeared on Sean Hannity's radio show June 20.  While I tend not to quote from broadcast programs too often, her comments (per Breitbart of June 21) in this particular instance are worth repeating:


Paglia called what she said the Democratic Party had done to journalism “absolutely grotesque” and warned it would take decades to recover.

“It’s obscene,” she said. “It’s outrageous, OK? It shows that the Democrats are nothing now but words and fantasy and hallucination and Hollywood. There’s no journalism left. What’s happened to The New York Times? What’s happened to the major networks? It’s an outrage.”

“I’m a professor of media studies, in addition to a professor of humanities, OK?” she continued. “And I think it’s absolutely grotesque the way my party has destroyed journalism. Right now, it is going to take decades to recover from this atrocity that’s going on where the news media have turned themselves over to the most childish fraternity, kind of buffoonish behavior.”

"Social justice" reaches out:  Looks like Ferguson settled with the family of deceased thug, thief, and attempted cop murderer Michael Brown, probably for substantial money. How is this possible? To some rational minds, kinda appears as though one can be rewarded really, really well -- with sympathetic media publicity to boot -- for raising a child who turns into a monster, with or without family assistance.

But absurdity seems to blossom everywhere.  We're a bit tardy in thanking The Blaze (May 21) for a story about academics Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay, who used fake names to submit a seemingly scholarly paper to an academic journal in a wildly successful attempt to expose the nonsense inherent in gender studies. "The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct" was the name of their paper, submitted to and published in the May edition of Cogent Social Sciences.  Citing 20 sources -- many of which they either made up or did not read -- to support their bogus report, these gentleman took a giant step in exposing the joke which often goes by the name, academia.

Tale of the tapes:  President Trump admits, there are no tapes from the Comey conversation, and he let the drooling media ponder the "what if" illusion for days and days.  Joke's on you, main-streamers.  Sadly, the left has no sense of humor when the pie hits THEIR faces, a rare occasion indeed in the world of managed (political right-hating) news.

Smiley Emoticons Take a Holiday

The actions of Washington's solidly Democrat, Bernie Sanders philosophically-inspired and clearly insane ballpark shooter seem so in keeping with garden-variety leftists who just can't bear to mutter the words, we lost the election.  Such things, dear reader, are the acting-out tantrums of extremely sore losers.  And it doesn't stop at the ball field with Rep. Scalise and other victims of. . . leftist-style social justice?

I'm no Harvard Law School graduate, just a mere human born with neither the ability nor education to manipulate and destroy lives or bamboozle national governments for profit.  Nevertheless, even my pea-sized brain finds the current Washington atmosphere disturbing in ways previously unanticipated.

For instance, how is it that a special prosecutor rises fully in bloom from an issue (Russia and Trump) which had no legs from the start, to now explore a growing list of other "potential" issues?  And with Mueller in charge of finger painting the artwork for an investigation looking to throw anything against a wall that might stick, where's the integrity when we find he's brought on board investigators known to have been solidly housed in the Democrat/Clinton camp?  Impartiality?  We could laugh, but this ain't funny -- especially when one entertains the notion that the D.C. establishment and a smattering of other Donald Trump-hating Republicans probably can't wait for something, anything to turn up, allowing them to proclaim gleefully, "I love the smell of impeachment in the morning!"

Where, pray tell, was everybody during the last eight years when Obama, Holder, Lynch and a fetid tool chest of others apparently assumed laws existed to be twisted to accommodate an America-transforming agenda from hell?

We particularly were not surprised by Democrat crocodile tears, predictably following the shootings, when top party members declared this was The Moment when people from both major political parties would and should come together, to work together with no further naughtiness to imperil decision-making in Congress.

Yeah, right.

Except what the left really meant, as usual, could be summed up as 95 percent legislative awards for the left and only five percent for the right, per "cooperation."

Nice try, though.

There's nothing else to know, except the non-stop effort to remove Trump from Office so Democrats and the politically-scattered Elite can reclaim what they believe is theirs will continue using whatever modality is handy.  This approach is really the only tool the opposition possesses, for they have no rational argument when provably tainted philosophy intersects with rational thought.

Numerous U.S. Navy members were killed when a giant Philippines cargo carrier T-boned a destroyer:  Whatever transpires from the current investigation, it's going to take a long time before I can believe that planned terrorism didn't have a hand in the tragedy.  This incident unfolded just too perfectly.  An accident?  In this case, what could possibly constitute an accident?  Beyond that, how did a super high-tech U.S. Navy ocean vessel find itself absurdly vulnerable?  Military heads will roll eventually, and this time it won't be ISIS doing the chopping.

North Korea's release of mysteriously comatose Otto Warmbier -- now deceased -- does nothing to enhance rational world opinion of this nut-job country.  What happened? Beatings beyond comprehension?  A cardiac event from hard labor?  Did NK soldiers throw him in an oxygen-starved box because he wasn't working fast enough?  All we may ever know is that NK hates the United States, and we may continue to wonder what hand, if any, China played in this horror story.  That Warmbier reportedly visited North Korea through a Chinese tourist company, the infamous poster removal incident aside, could conceivably have a bearing on this sad nightmare.  When the only avenging hero in sight is the terrifying prospect of war in some form, anything can happen.

Suicide by remote control in Massachusetts:  Michelle Carter is found guilty of manslaughter in the suicide of Conrad Roy.  Eh? To suggest that each of these young people was troubled is an understatement, but the ultimate decision to take one's life rests with the dearly departed.  Carter was not a hypnotist, nor a psychiatrist, nor a Svengali, just a teenager who said stupid teenager things to a troubled teenager apparently influenced by stupid teenager words of bad encouragement.  Yes, this is bullying in a form all its own.  Still, was she the ventriloquist and he the wooden dummy without a mind?  Was he coerced into becoming her voodoo doll, manipulated by pins stuck in appropriate places?  I see this only as a tragic event orchestrated by two young folk profoundly messed up in their own mutual way, and ultimately it didn't take much to light the match destined to blow everything to hell.  But manslaughter?  I don't see it.

Congratulations to the U.S. Supreme Court for deciding per eight members that a trademark may not be refused simply because some feel it offensive.  Therefore, the Asian rock band, "The Slant" (uh huh) will apparently be allowed its quest for a name pleasing to the, um. eye.

MUFON Quakes On, and Other Stuff

The Breaking Broken News:  The shooting of a congressman and others by a member of the all too plentiful lunatic stock again points out -- not what the far left wants to hear, of course -- the absolute necessity to embrace the Second Amendment and let people carry weapons to protect themselves, their families and friends without cumbersome paperwork and obstacles aplenty.  The police are great, of course, but all too often they end up arriving just in time to draw chalk lines after self-preventable mayhem occurs.  Maybe this sounds horrifying and distasteful to some of rational mind, but when you look around society and the world today, what other solution have we?  Even congressional members are suddenly demanding personal firearm protection -- so why should the rest of us be denied?  The human environment in which we live every day appears disturbingly and increasingly out of control, and to use words I have dropped in past blog entries from time to time, I know what we are.  That is not a compliment.

That this now dead, progressive shooter was a rabid Bernie Sanders supporter is irrelevant, yet still  probably deserves a thousand more words, but I'll restrain myself.  The shooter's actions and demise actually speak volumes about the nut-job side of politics, requiring no assistance whatsoever from me.  But this event does provide one more reason why folks of all walks of life might want to contemplate running from the advancing madness systematically devouring the political left.  Taking count, the majority of loonies seem to congregate on the left, and that's just the way it is.

Speaking of loonies and such things:  Sunday's upcoming NBC program hosted by Megyn Kelly will feature an interview with everybody's favorite conspiratorial spokesperson, Alex Jones.  Plainly, it's just going to be that kind of week in the USA.  (Personal disclaimer:  "Robert don't do no Alex Jones in this blog.")

It's no wonder I keep a link to master journalist Billy Cox's Web site, frozen in time, which tackled, primarily, UFOs.  Like others, I darned nearly get down on my knees and pray for his return, accompanied by exceptional writing, common sense and the distinct (rare) ability to understand the difference between a worthwhile story and a pile of dog poop decorated as UFO evidence.

Today, I'm not sure whether the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) hovers very far from the dog poop pile.  For years, despite a never-ending onslaught of controversy regarding MUFON's function, I've carried a link to MUFON's Web site, and intend to continue doing so in hope that the day will come when I can say I'm proud to provide a link.  Right now, not so much.

Way, way back, when the late Coral Lorenzen of APRO and I had infrequent phone conversations, the subject of MUFON would crop up.  As other writers have noted, Coral was particularly incensed in her conviction that a former MUFON director had stolen APRO membership lists, intent upon absconding with APRO members.  Her other major complaint was an assertion that MUFON was composed largely of a teenage membership, the "gee whiz" kids who hung on just for a thrill of sorts. 

Knowing what I knew about MUFON decades ago, I subscribed to its journal, but never wished to be, or ever was, more than a subscriber.  At least for a few years.

So now we have the latest "scandal" at MUFON:  The state section director for Pennsylvania became entwined in controversy for allegedly posting racists comments online.  Maybe allegedly isn't quite the word here, because he has since been terminated from his MUFON position.

This latest stinking fish head episode from the annals of MUFON's leadership could hardly come at a worse time:  As public interest in UFOs declines in this age where drones and all manner of human-made objects rule the skies -- not to mention a general anemia enveloping a serious study of the phenomenon --  seasoned UFO researcher Dr. Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos offers in his UFO Fotocat Blog for June 9, 2017 a lengthy piece entitled, "Anniversary Issue:  70 Years After Arnold."  This, his personal impression of everything done and known about UFOs over the decades, paints a very depressing picture of, essentially, a big fat zero for results and an assertion that all UFOs can be probably be explained as something, anything not involving, shall we say, exotic visitors.

Before we dress up like lemmings and jump off a bridge, however, balancing the whole thing off is an accompanying blog entry by Dr. Thomas Bullard in which he offers sensible reasons NOT to give up on UFO research.  Whew, that was close. . .

Nevertheless, this "anniversary" blog entry, coupled with MUFON's latest dilemma -- made worse, by the way, when MUFON officials seemed initially to make light of the situation -- reminds us that the UFO topic means many things to many people, and its very mention attracts all kinds of folk -- and always has. 

Nice to see demonstrations all over the country against Sharia Law this past weekend, orchestrated by Act for America  (actforamerica.org)  No American embracing our culture and guaranteed freedoms would tolerate one minute of this system of brutality and dominance in our lives.  Last week's astounding event where Islamic terrorists bombed Iran -- king of the terrorist nations -- exemplifies the horror and insanity spreading around the globe.

Some young people:  Do you ever look in their eyes on the street or at the store and think. . .missing pieces?  Thanks, progressives.  Thanks, Obama.  This is pretty much your baby -- or we should say, these are your babies.  Maybe someday learning will come back in style inside public schools. . .and we're certainly not endorsing Big Money being poured into the system by high-tech billionaires, who wish to mold kids into their own image.  In my opinion.

Blind hatred's practitioners:  The mainstream media and fellow traveling Democrats continue to ride a one-track mind:  Never have I witnessed a national press so gushing with hatred for a President to a degree causing abandonment of any semblance of fairness.  Hearings, shmeerings -- even establishment Republicans seem to be all in for a Trump failure as attempts to smear A.G. Jeff Sessions and some nebulous Russian connection dissolve into nothing.  As Democrats persist in masturbating their followers into one baseless frenzy after another, one wonders just when all of this nonsense will come to an end so the President can get on with the work voters sent him to perform.  Senator Kamala Harris, apparently attempting to enhance her national Democrat star power by rapid-firing questions to Sessions, only looked annoying. Senate Intelligence Committee?  We sure hope they start acting the part.

We do appreciate Sen. Tom Cotton's intelligent and more than appropriate comments making a comparison to spy novels and the Sessions hearing.

We sleep a lot better this week, knowing that Mr. and Ms. Obama will receive a 70 million dollar publisher's advance for a book from each.  Maybe they'll donate the entire sum to charitable organizations?  Um. . .no.

ABC-TV's plan to feature a Nixon/Watergate special this week is surely no coincidence, as this will be an excellent avenue to use guilt by association -- Nixon was a Republican and Trump is a Republican, and so all must be corrupt, in essence.  Are we not tired of the left plotting something new every day?

The progressive media folk have been after Trump since day one at the White House, and certainly long before.  To take media operatives seriously, one would think this President is doing nothing, but in fact he's accomplished plenty.  It remains a very sad and dangerous fact that the national press and Democrat Party are pretty much one and the same -- a poll taken among Washington reporters months ago, you may recall, found that almost all, if not all, of them are Democrats.  Is it any surprise that we have a level of reporting almost insistent upon destroying the Trump administration, day after day?  But Trump aside, the press has a new superhero to drool over, and her name is. . .

Reality Winner, another American who allegedly leaked vital information for all to see.  Don't these usually high-IQ people ever take a moment to ponder the enormity of importance involved when one takes an oath to perform government service?  Watch the ACLU or another likely source work their butts off to make her a hero undeserving of hard prison time, particularly in view of her alleged rep denouncing white people (like her) and expressing words of support for Black Lives Matter, a group which couldn't possibly labor at becoming more racist against Caucasians if it tried.  In some twisted way, Ms. Winner seems to believe, or maybe said it just to bolster her eventual trial, that she performed a public service.  Discovered as a leaker, Ms. Winner apparently takes pride in her actions and steps forward as if she's the main attraction at a debutante's ball.  How did she get her job?  Remember Obama, because this is what his agenda fostered, and we've little doubt there's much more to come. 

Whose coma is worse?  While establishment U.S. senators sit, fret and interrogate over invisible kisses awarded the Russians by Donald Trump, North Korea releases a young American hostage rendered unresponsive by a coma of now one year's duration.  A year!  Yet, the U.S. Senate prefers to focus attention instead on Jeff Sessions and the fish that got away and wasn't there in the first place.

From "This Island Earth" to this island Earth:  Technology News (June 8, 2017) reports that Boeing Co. is well into plans for passenger jetliners with no need for pilots.  Mike Sinnett, Boeing's vice-president of product development explains that with drones already freely on the market for less than a thousand dollars, "the basic building blocks of the technology clearly are available."  Because jet aircraft have long been able to take off, fly and land via computer guidance, Boeing engineers apparently believe the time has come for pilotless planes.

We hasten to mention a scene in the old fifties Universal sci-fi movie, "This Island Earth," where space aliens transport a scientist on a pilotless prop-job aircraft across the country. . .though we're certainly not suggesting that Mr. Sinnett has a high alien forehead, white hair, or sometimes answers to an a.k.a. of  Exeter. But if they roll these hybrids out one day and the model is listed as the Metaluna Special, we're sure gonna wonder.

S(l)aved by the Experts -- Redux

 
Who wields ultimate power over our lives and choices, all too willing to separate us from freedoms we used to know and accept as ours forever?

A specific question asked by Washington journalists following President Trump's heave-ho of the cumbersome, sucker-punching human rat poison known as the Paris Climate Accord took me way back -- way back decades, to occasions when I was invited to be a guest on various radio and TV talk shows to discuss the UFO phenomenon. Invariably, callers would ask if I "believed" in UFOs.  The correct response would be, do you believe in Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny?  And the right question should have been, do I "believe" UFOs are a real scientific mystery.  Yes, by the way, I do.

So now I watch members of the current excuse for Washington -- and national -- journalism as reporters ask the President's staff, "Does the President believe in climate change?" 

What?  Who cares? 

The correct two-part answer is, the climate was changing long before humans appeared on the planet, and Mother Nature never had an obligation to treat us kindly as things warmed and cooled over a millennia.  The second part of the answer is, human effects on climate are far from demonstrable and clear-cut.

Particularly essential for the aha-gotcha! journalism crew to bring up, and they seldom will, is all the fraud and lying involved in climate "science," as universities and entities with political connections strive consistently to separate us from money and power.  Remember the climate scandal at England's University of East Anglia, where data was fudged and overlooked?  They aren't alone.  Such instances pop up all over the world, but Big Media can't be bothered to report what smaller sources (bless 'em!) reveal.  Disclosure of fraud and failure in the climate change payout industry does not fit the agenda, and nobody wants to tell the people how they're being robbed and emasculated via schemes which masquerade as honest, caring and as sweet as a garden of fragrant flowers. 

Simply put, ignoring the other side of climate science ain't science.

Some forty years ago, I was writing articles and book reviews for the now long-departed and lamented Pursuit, journal of the (likewise departed) Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU), founded by the great Ivan T. Sanderson.

My chosen title for one was "S(l)aved by the Experts," the piece intended to list a few occasions where "men of science" were totally, sometimes embarrassingly wrong about their predictions (". . .and I speak as an expert on . . .").  Even in a younger day, I became negatively impressed by the pure twaddle spewed out by people more in love with their Ph.D's than the evidence they felt compelled to twist and strangle until results matched their predetermined beliefs.  I ascended to observing this sad state of affairs based primarily upon an interest in UFOs going back to my early teenage years. 
The 1950s, sixties and seventies were particularly fruitful for idiotic and uninformed explanations trashing various UFO reports, as this was an era when media representatives, aware of UFO sightings in their area, would rush to the nearest university scientists to beg explanations in time for "news at eleven."  Except for a few brave souls consistently aware that science involves sober investigations, no matter the topic, there seemed a preponderance of huffy science-based individuals more than happy to accommodate a thirsty press eager for quick answers.  So. . .the UFO was obviously a meteorite. . .the UFO was an optical illusion. . .the witnesses weren't qualified to describe what they saw. . .the so-called UFO was the planet Mars. . .Jupiter. . .a meteor shower. . .a bird. . .a misidentified airplane. . .etc., etc.

Especially outrageous, even after sullying the reputations of UFO witnesses who felt obligated to make reports publicly, were occasions when experts even tackled and ridiculed or dismissed the accounts of airline and military pilots, police officers and others -- and yes, fellow scientists -- whose reports tended to be technically better regarding detail.

As the late astronomer and former UFO consultant to the U.S. Air Force, Dr. J. Allen Hynek once said, "Science is not always what scientists do."  Thus, ladies and gentlemen, we bring you "climate science" and the human element.

So now, in 2017, without further ado, may we present for your reading pleasure and entertainment. . .

* * * * * * * * * *

Global warming.  Oops, I mean the greenhouse effect.  Oops, I mean a mini ice age.  Oops, let's call it climate change.

A few minutes after 3:30 p.m. E.S.T. on the first of June, the words spoken by President Donald J. Trump of the USA apparently, like semantic blasting caps, set off mental explosives in the heads of climate-huggers all over the planet.  Wow, talk about "useful idiots."

I'll say one thing for eight years of the Obama bunch, which mired us in classic debt and filled the courts with judges who probably couldn't consistently make non-partisan decisions if their lives depended upon doing so:  The administration's operatives, fans, disciples and sheep sure knew how to brainwash the young, convincing them that the climate sky is falling like a rock.  By the time Trump got around to doing the right thing this month by scuttling our role in the Paris climate agreement, the planet's hypnotized population detonated in unison like mass members of an environmental "Manchurian Candidate" club. 

Only seconds elapsed before the usual big mouths came forward in utter condemnation: Al Gore, some of whose original pronouncements on climate are already flatter than invisible pancakes; Facebook's Zuckerberg, who lives in some distant world of which I want no part; and the brilliant Elon Musk, whose building tantrum caused him to withdraw from a presidential advisory committee (don't let the door hit you on the way out, Mr. Brilliance).

Michael Moore and the ACLU also got into the act, too.  No surprise there.  Is the Pope Catholic?  Oh wait, even the Pope is in on this nonsense. . .

My favorites are always actors and actresses who join the enviro-bandwagon, names such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Cher and -- well, it's a very long list.  Here we have distinguished members of stage and screen, well-schooled in memorizing lines of script and moving in ways just short of resembling the process of Claymation, and zap!  They qualify as environmental experts, qualified to step before the cameras and lecture us, the stupid non-theatrical goons, in the error of our ways.  ' course, after reprimanding us, they go off on vacation in their environmentally hazardous jet aircraft and yachts, all dependent upon dreaded fossil fuels.

How do we break it to young folk that super-heroes are generally found in comic books, not in our daily lives?  The Paris agreement was not a superhero, and Trump is not the super-villain who killed off the superhero, though I'm sure a lot of kids see it this way, thanks to comics themselves and fictional depictions of environmental catastrophe.

We remain "slaved" by the experts.  Many seem all too happy to reference charts and graphs showing climate horrors, yet ignore opposing scientists' findings which tend to scuttle that which scares us by design.  By intent.  What consensus?  No, the evidence is not all in.  Incidentally, doesn't ice continue to accumulate in Antarctica, perhaps alerting us to an historically normal mini-ice age?

The solar panel/wind turbine crowd finds itself so pleased with its toys, but few care to acknowledge probably millions of birds fried and blinded by still cost-prohibitive panels -- and seagulls and other water fowl killed by turbine blades placed too far away from human outrage in offshore areas.  Where nobody can see that there's nothing to see there except what "they" want us to see.

The. U.S. will nevertheless continue to excel with distinction environmentally, as two-faced countries have not.  Anybody notice the pollution mills owned by China, India and the other usual suspects?  Trump merely prevented the rest of the world from picking our -- your -- pockets, and the price tag for remaining in the Paris charade was huge ("green" dollars exit) for the United States.  France's new president condemns Trump, but also seems hell-bent on continuing to import terrorists into his own country.  Germany's Angela Merkel's decisions are at least as tragic and, considering the destruction she has perpetrated upon her own country with imports of dangerous human detritus from the Middle East, anything she has to say regarding Trump is laughable.

The newest absurdity comes via the "U.S. Climate Alliance" proposed by the governors of New York, California, Washington and eventually others, as all swear to make their states abide by the Paris agreement.  The joke may be on progressive governors, however, when they realize that state-inspired environmental actions -- not federal -- are pretty much what the Trump administration prefers.  It's just too bad, though not surprising, that they'll attempt to stick with the profound socialism example woven into the Paris agreement.

Screw international opinion, and screw wussy celebrity whining.  Accept it or not, Donald Trump just freed the U.S. from international enslavement.  For now, at least, except for governors and mayors involving their wretched taxpaying citizens in Paris Accord foolishness, we won't be s(l)aved by the "experts."