Real Men Don’t Sit Around Analyzing Global Warming – Real Men make It happen!

  Good day Humboldt County!

Paths of resistance leads to dead ends when it comes to really solving the planet’s problems.

You can’t mention the subject of Global Warming (or the slew of other tags meaning the same thing like Climate Change) without being labeled conservative, or liberal, effectively polarizing any chance for cooperation.

Once it becomes all about protecting the brand – Republicans or Democrats – and not about addressing the rapidly changing climate – the people are left without solutions because of ideologies. 

There’s been over 3,000 weather records set thus far this year. Worldwide weather patterns are becoming increasingly unpredictable and destructive. Rather than detail every drastic example, you can fill in the blanks. I’d like to move on to something more positive – like using science to help predict Mother Nature’s future movements. But there’s this problem… 

                                                                    Fact

              Japan has built a computer twenty times faster than the fastest American machine.

Here’s one reason why:

“The accomplishment is also a vivid statement of contrasting scientific and technology priorities in the United States and Japan. The Japanese machine was built to analyze climate change, including global warming, as well as weather and earthquake patterns. By contrast, the United States has predominantly focused its efforts on building powerful computers for simulating weapons, while its efforts have lagged in scientific areas like climate modeling.”                                           (The New York Times, April 20, 2002)

My solution, which will be roundly ignored by government contractors for the military, the Pentagon, and every Hawk in Washington, is to cut back on our bloated Defense Budget and invest the money saved into weather research that may save millions of people’s lives in the coming years. A common sense approach like that doesn’t seem to have a chance in our toxic political climate.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

I never realized how dangerous playing pool can be…

I haven’t played pool in a few years, but there was a time I played it regularly. I don’t claim to be a great shooter, or even an above average player…but I did win a game now and then.

At no time did I ever feel like I was in danger while playing pool. The closest I came to concern was when I was stationed at Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro, with the 101st MPs, in 1971.

I road around in a patrol car with a crazed Irish giant seeking confrontations with just about anyone, and we had to go into bars where GI’s were fighting and break up the fracas. During the course of arresting a drunken soldier, I was smacked from behind with a pool stick! It’s lucky I have a thick skull and the blow didn’t kill me.

As it were, I had trouble walking in a straight line for the rest of the day. That’s the closest I ever came to experiencing violence connected to a game of pool. Note, I wasn’t playing it at the time. Now, I have to rethink the whole issue of danger and playing pool after reading about this fellow:

“A British man has had the tip of a pool cue removed from his brain after skewering himself through the eye when he slipped over during a game.

Doctors in Leeds, northern England, initially thought Andy Parsons (photo right), 31, was only hurt superficially after the accident and stitched his eyelid. But his eye failed to reopen properly after three months and an MRI scan revealed the pool cue tip was embedded in his brain.

A team of surgeons spent ten hours removing part of his skull, following the entry route of the cue and removing the tip, before rebuilding the top of his nose and brow. Parsons, from Knaresborough, told The Sun, "I know I'm lucky to be alive. I never thought pool was such a dangerous game." (source)

When the Apocalypse strikes: ‘New Agers’ wait for Aliens to come out of mountain in France this December

                       Good Day Humboldt County!

At some point in our personal travels we are all confronted with people who believe the end is near and we’re all going to die or disappear.

I thought all the hippies shed the sixties and mainstreamed. But apparently there is a new age of hippies who aren’t all about peace and love. More like death and trips to new worlds or “cycles.” They’re gathering in a little village in France as you read this. I really think the Mayan Calendar thing isn’t as cool as these aliens coming out of mountains and whisking us all off to space.

There’s other visionaries with different dates for our destruction this year, but they don’t seem to have large followings. For some reason the French locals are expecting up to 100,000 hippies to show up so they can be captured by aliens in December. The upside is it really gives tourism a boost during a tough economy in France.     

                             Straight from the news:

“BUGARACH, France, (UPI) -- Hundreds of hippies have made their way to the French village of Bugarach to await aliens they say will emerge from inside a mountain when apocalypse strikes.

About 200 New Age believers have taken up residency at the base of the Pic de Bugarach mountain, The Independent reported Sunday. Upward of 100,000 people are expected to visit the mountain before Dec. 21 when the group believes the world will come to an end. Already this year, about 20,000 people have made their way to the peak -- about twice the number of hikers all of last year.

The group believes that on its date for the apocalypse, aliens will come out of the mountain and take with them any nearby humans.

"The apocalypse we believe in is the end of a certain world and the beginning of another," said a man called Jean, who has lived in a wooded area near the forest for several years.

"A new spiritual world. The year 2012 is the end of a cycle of suffering. Bugarach is one of the major chakras [energy centers] of the Earth, a place devoted to welcoming the energies of tomorrow."

Bugarach Mayor Jean-Pierre Delord has alerted national authorities of the situation in fear of a mass suicide.”

Time for me to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Forced multiple combat tours takes toll

            By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard
                       It was bound to happen.
  After 10 years of war in Afghanistan, a massacre brings back memories of the horrors committed against civilians during the Vietnam war - in particular, My Lai.  I’m not surprised. The military’s policy of multiple combat tours virtually assured it. How could it not have occurred?
  When I was in Vietnam (1970), only one tour was required. People did re-up voluntarily, going back for more combat tours. They didn’t have to, however. Today’s warriors have no choice about multiple combat tours. 
  I’ve heard people say because we have an all volunteer military, anyone who goes in should be ready for those multiple tours. The attitude being, “they asked for it.”  Well, yes and no.
Let’s put this whole issue in perspective. One combat tour is more than enough to cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We learned that in Vietnam. Why was one tour sufficient back then?
Partly, because there was a draft and lots of young men were available for cannon fodder. If the military had a multiple tour policy during the Vietnam war, it would have ended long before it did. I suspect military planners knew that. Men were leaving the country to avoid serving in the military and going to Vietnam.
The medical community “in Country” during the Vietnam war, generally thought their patients were just trying to avoid doing their job. That they were cowards. Most of the time the shrinks sent their patients back to the boonies after a short “rest” period.
Imposing multiple tours back then would have been considered sheer madness. That was before anyone knew about PTSD.

We sure know about it today. The awareness about PTSD is at an all time high. That’s why it’s so maddening to see our warmongers demand multiple tours from both active duty personnel and Reservists. During Vietnam, Reservists weren’t sent into combat for even one tour.

 The only excuse for repeated tours today is there are not enough bodies to go around. By all accounts, there are record number of soldiers who served in Iraqi and Afghanistan with PTSD. The numbers are growing at an alarming rate. Programs have been implemented to deal with these cases, but for the most part, it’s been business as usual.
That tells me our military planners know the odds of getting PTSD are extremely high, even from one tour. Still, they’ve chosen to sacrifice our volunteers on the alter of their global ambitions and ideologies.
So why should anyone be surprised when highly decorated Staff Sgt. Robert Bales snapped and allegedly went on a murderous rampage?

Imagine, if you will, what this veteran of three combat tours thought when he was suddenly (with no warning of any kind) sent to Afghanistan after living safely stateside with his family. The military was even training him to be a recruiter. A well-deserved stateside break.
Reportedly, days before he suffered his breakdown, he was standing next to a friend who got his leg blown off - a critical wound.  It must have been a shock. Bales had already suffered a "concussive head injury," and lost part of his foot during his deployments in Iraq, according to a recent Associated Press report.
The New York Times reported that a senior American official said Staff Sgt. Bales had been drinking alcohol the night of the massacre. Other reports say he has financial problems. What sparked this atrocity will be argued about for months and years to come.
Those innocent women, children, and old men were more victims of our military’s insane policy of pushing people until they break, than Staff Sgt. Bale’s allegedly senseless attack.
It could have been anyone from the 3rd (Stryker) Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, stationed at Lewis-McChord in Washington state. Bales had been screened for PTSD after the head injury and had been cleared, but characterized the testing as "minimal," according to his lawyer, John Henry Browne.

Interestingly, the base's medical center is being investigated for allegedly down-grading post traumatic stress diagnoses to other mental illnesses that do not prevent deployment or qualify soldiers for disability payments. Lewis-McChord is reputedly the most troubled base in the US military. (see http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2012/0317/Did-soldier-said-to-have-killed-Afghan-civilians-come-from-most-troubled-base ).

It’s too late for those innocent people, and for Staff Sgt. Bales. We never should have gone to war in Afghanistan. Nothing has been accomplished other than garnering the absolute hatred of nearly every man, woman, and child there.

Unless, of course, you want to count a new generation of American soldiers suffering from PTSD.
As It Stands, you have to go to the source of a problem to solve it. Treating the symptoms is a waste of time…and lives.

                                                               Websites carrying this column: 
1.) Military Lawyer Reviews

2.) Multiple Choice

3.) Luxury hotel in Vietnam

4.) Law News – Gary C. Eto

5.) World News – Asia – Vietnam

6.) Notion Core

7.) Mental Breakdown

Intergalatic News: Darth ‘Cheney’ Vader gets heart transplant

Darth “Cheney”, 71, who served as vice president during the George W. Bush regime, got a heart transplant yesterday. This came as a shock to most that know him, as it has been generally assumed he never had a heart!

His lackey’s won’t say where he got the heart from, but claim that it’s the dawn of a new era for Darth Cheney Vader. As Earthlings know, Vader has a nasty habit of lying, and they suspect that his latest ploy is an effort to make people think he’s human.

Will the “Dark Side” become involved in this presidential election now that Darth Cheney has extended his evil life?  Stay tuned folks…that’s not all!

Kuwait honors shooting team with bogus national anthem

Borat fans were probably delighted to hear his version of Kazakhstan’s national anthem in a real world setting.

On the other hand, there’s a pissed-off Kazakhstan shooting team that didn’t appreciate the medal ceremony in Kuwait turning into a comedy.

Here’s what happened:

“Kazakhstan's shooting team demanded an apology from Kuwait Friday after a spoof national anthem from the satirical film "Borat" was played at a medal ceremony instead of the country's official version.

The blunder took place as Maria Dmitrienko stood on top of the podium to celebrate her gold-medal performance. But instead of the Kazkah national anthem, Dmitrienko had to listen to the song used in the 2006 smash hit "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

The film, made by British comic Sacha Baron Cohen, portrayed Kazakhstan as a hotbed of backward racists who drink horse urine and indulge in incest. Red-faced organizers in Kuwait apologized for the embarrassing oversight before re-staging the medal ceremony, this time with the correct version of the Kazakhstan anthem.

Kazakhstan's foreign office told local media they were investigating the incident to avoid any similar errors in the future.”  (Source)

Once upon a time we didn’t do a single sleep to get energized

                      Good Day Humboldt County!

Our journey through life requires regular sleep to gather energy for the next day. But how much sleep do we really need? I’m most rested with less than six hours at a stretch. I know people who sleep 10 straight hours in order to feel really rested.

Actually, the thought that we need eight hours of straight sleep for maximum performance the next day is a modern one. Apparently, our ancestors took “two sleeps” a day. It’s a fascinating subject and discussed here: 

“It happens to all of us, you wake up in the middle of the night and try desperately to get back to sleep but instead toss and turn until the alarm goes off. Rather than it being simply symptomatic of a stressful work week, science suggests you might be experiencing a throwback to a default pattern of human slumber. According to mounting research, the concept of a solid eight hours sleep is a fairly recent phenomenon and it's likely that our ancestors enjoyed "two sleeps" of shorter duration, separated by time awake, as opposed to one sustained period.

As the BBC's Stephanie Hegarty recently wrote, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr was the first to rediscover this behavioural trait in the early 1990s while studying the sleeping habits of humans. Plunging a group of participants into 14 hours of darkness for a month he found they fell into a distinct pattern after a period of adjustment: sleeping for four hours before waking for one or two and then sleeping a further four. Since then, Roger Ekirch, a professor in the Department of History at Virginia Tech and author of At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, has found a wealth of evidence to suggest that the single sleep is a modern occurrence, with "first" and "second" sleeps considered the norm since the beginning of human civilization.

"The pattern of our sleep has changed from a segmented or bi-phasic pattern, which existed from time immemorial, to the compressed, consolidated form to which we aspire today, but do not always succeed in achieving," Ekirch told me.” Read the rest at the Source

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Consumer complaints drive ‘Pink Slime’ from supermarket chains

         Good Day Humboldt County!

  In the course of millions of Americans culinary travels, they’ve eaten “pink slime,” at one time or another.

Most of us weren’t even aware that we were making hamburger patties from an ammonia-treated beef additive.

  The food industry refers to pink slime as a “finely textured beef” additive and has been quietly approving the crap for years.

 Social media, and the mainstream media, recently expressed worries about how safe the pink slime was to eat. Hundreds of thousands of online petitions popped up seeking to stop schools from serving it after the word got out students enrolled in the national school lunch program were being served pink slime. The Agriculture Department got the message and announced starting next fall, schools involved in the national school lunch program will have the option of avoiding the product.

It’s nice to see how quickly most of the major supermarkets are responding to customer’s concerns:

Snippet:

“Supermarket chains Kroger Co. and Stop & Shop said Thursday they will join the growing list of store chains that will no longer sell beef that includes an additive with the unappetizing moniker "pink slime."

The Kroger Co., the nation's largest traditional grocer with 2,435 supermarkets in 31 states, also said it will stop buying the beef, reversing itself after saying Wednesday that it would sell beef both with and without the additive. The chains joined Safeway, Supervalu and Food Lion, among others, who have said they won't sell beef with the filler.

The low-cost ingredient is made from fatty bits of meat left over from other cuts. The bits are heated to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit and spun to remove most of the fat. The lean mix then is compressed into blocks for use in ground meat. The product is exposed to ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella. Whole Foods, A&P and Costco said they have never sold beef products with the additive.” (Source)

Interestingly enough, no word yet from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., - which sells more food than any other retailer in the nation. What do you think? Will Wal-Mart live up to it’s slimy reputation and keep stocking the refrigerator section with pink slime?

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Are Mole Men preparing to invade Clintonville, Wisconsin?

Residents are of this small town are “shaking in their boots” or laughing like hyenas!

A mysterious loud boom went off Sunday evening in Clintonville, Wisconsin, and nothing has been the same since. Residents are reporting strange disturbance sounds like distant thunder, fireworks or someone slamming a heavy door.

The booming in Clintonville continued Monday and Tuesday nights and into Wednesday morning, prompting some residents to leave the area.

City officials say they have investigated every possible human cause. They checked water, sewer and gas lines, contacted the military about any exercises in the area, reviewed permits for mining explosives and inspected a dam next to City Hall. They even tested methane levels at the landfill in case the gas was spontaneously exploding.

Steve Dutch, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, said the ground beneath them is solid, and that there are no known earthquake fault lines in the area. Officials in a city plagued by unexplained booms and bangs are hiring engineers in the hopes of finding the source of the racket, the city administrator said today. There have been numerous theories thrown out for the cause of the commotion, but my favorite has to be the one suggesting Mole Men are acting up down there!

Smithsonian Channel’s ‘Titanoboa: Monster Snake’ is an Ophidiophobian’s worst nightmare

       Warning!

Don’t watch today’s TV special (Smithsonian Channel)if you have Snakephobia (Ophidiophobia).

If you happen to be a New York commuter with a nervous disposition about our slithery friends, then be aware there’s an exhibit today (and tomorrow) in Grand Central that may ruin your day!

A monster snake is setting up home in Grand Central. OK, so it's actually an accurate replica of the largest snake ever discovered.The 48-foot monster – weighing in at a whopping 2,500 pounds – will be on display in Vanderbilt Hall. Titanoboa is thought to have lived 65 million years ago.

Here’s a link with more information on the documentary and museum exhibition. I’m sure glad Titanoboa’s descendants aren’t as big…imagine any animal, or man, today trying to take one on!

Cat makes like flying squirrel as it falls off 19 story building

      Good Day Humboldt County!

   I’ve found that pets have really improved my walk through life. They offer so much, and ask for so little.

  I especially enjoy hearing tales of animals surviving insurmountable odds. Today’s “tail” involves a one-year old cat that used up one of it’s 9 lives in a perilous plunge off a 19 story building.

                News Snippet:

“Sugar, a white furry cat, plunged 19 floors from a window in a high-rise building in Boston and – aided by her fall into a tiny mulch patch and the feline’s ability to glide a la the "flying squirrel" – lived to walk another day, animal rescue officials say.

A woman in the West End building said she saw a “white streak” go by her window early Wednesday afternoon and then saw Sugar after she hit the ground, said Mike Brammer, assistant manager of the animal rescue services department at the Animal Rescue League of Boston.

“You could see the impact crater where she actually did hit the ground and she actually lost some fur in the hole, too," Brammer said. The cat's small landing spot is surrounded by brick and concrete. “Whether cats can sometimes aim, so if it did it itself or if it was a combination of luck or both … it managed to hit that small patch of mulch, so it was very soft ground,” he said.

The feline, believed to be one year old, was aided in her fall by dynamics akin to the “flying squirrel” phenomenon, Brammer said.” (Read the whole story here.)

Time for me to walk on down the road….