One Man's Point of View

I'm going to vote for the not-so-intelligent one.

2010-12-29T15:28:00.000-08:00

I think next election I am going to vote for the not-so-intelligent guy. Oh, I know that seems to run against the grain. We think that we want the smartest one up there, running whatever needs to be run.

Really, I mean look at our everyday world. If your car is broken, you want the smartest mechanic working on it, right? If you are ill, you hope your doctor is the smartest person you can get to work on you, right? So, what about when you vote?

Well, I, for one, am tired of the folks who are so intelligent that they think they know how to spend their way out of poverty, or the ones who think that there really isn't any such thing as evil, just misunderstandings. My step-father was taken out of school and sent to work in the mines at age 10, and even he wasn't "intelligent" enough to believe those things.

There comes a time when intelligence leads to arrogance. Other people may not understand how spending more money can pull us out of bankruptcy, but we know. Trust me. I’m doing this for your good. Yes, the rabble may not be able to turn lead into gold, but we elite can.

Ben Franklin once said, “Jack was so intelligent that he could say ‘horse’ in seven languages, but he was so foolish that he rode a cow into town.”

You may disagree with me, but that’s probably just because you’re smarter than I am.

Buz

I Said "NO!"

2010-10-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

"NO" what an awful sounding word.

"Daddy, can I have an ice cream cone?"
"No."

"Mom, can I go to the Mall with Alex?"
"No."

"Dad, can I use the car Friday night for the game?"
"NO!"

We're all used to the down side of "no". We have all been kids, and had great hopes or plans, only to have them smashed to pieces by that cruel word.

However, if you are or have been a parent, you know the other side of that scenario.

"Daddy, can I have an ice cream cone?"
"No. It is 45 minutes until supper, and if you have one now, it will ruin your appetite."

"Mom, can I go to the Mall with Alex?"
"No. Last time you were with Alex, he left you at the mall and you had to call me to come get you. I don't like him; he is very irresponsible. I am afraid what might happen to you if you go to the Mall with him."

"Dad, can I use the car Friday night for the game?"
"NO! The last three times you took the car to the game on Friday night, you were (1) out until 2:00 AM, (2) got a ticket for wreckless driving, (3) ran over someone's dog."

Maybe next time you hear the word "NO" the first thought should be, "exactly what are they saying 'NO' to?" and the second, "could it be that 'NO' is an appropriate answer to this?"

I am guessing that how you answer those to questions might depend of if you are still a child, or an adult (and I am not basing that on whether you are older than 18 or not, but whether you have taken responsibility for your own life, or if you still rely on others to provide for you.)

Buz

Identity Theft

2010-02-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

I have not been the victim of identity theft, but I know that fear which comes from misplacing a wallet or credit card, and being worried that it might lead to such. I have also received a letter from the investment firm that my former employer retained to handle the retirement funds which explained that they had "misplaced" some backup media, and that the employees identity records might be at risk. So it is a real concern for almost anyone these days.

What is the worst that could happen? You receive a letter in the mail some afternoon which recounts that you are in debt to some bank or credit card company for $20K, $30K, or even $50K, and that your credit score is now 52 (out of 850 ... I think my neighbor's dog has a credit score of 200). Can you imagine that? To suddenly wake up one morning and find that you are suddenly in debt $50K, and you had never bought a thing? You never even heard of this company.

Scary, isn't it!

Well, if you are not sitting down, do so.

The national debt just topped $14 TRILLION. That is $14,000,000,000,000.00.

There are about 350,000,000 people in the United States. So, as of this month, every man, woman, and child now ows

$14,000,000,000,000.00 / 350,000,000 = $40,000.00

So, if you are an average family with 4 people, that is $160,000.00 that you owe.

And that is if the government does not spend another penny for the rest of your lives.

The government does not have a stash of money somewhere. Every penny they spend comes out of our pockets, out of our childrens' pockets, out of our grandchildrens' pockets, and at this point, out of our great-grandchildrens' pockets.

If someone came up to me on the street and asked me for a $1 for a cup of coffee, I would not begrudge them $1, I would either give it to them, or take them to McD's for a burger and fries (and I have done both before). However, if someone came up to me and demanded that I dig into my grandchildrens' college fund to buy them a car, I would tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. Oh, unless it was cash for clunkers ... then I would have to give it to them.

Here's how that whole thing works: Ed has $100, Bob and Joe each have $10. Fred comes along and runs for office that he will tax the rich and make everything better. So Bob and Joe vote for him while Ed does not. Fred wins with 75% majority (he voted for himself), and he takes $90 from Ed and gives $5 to Bob, Joe, and Ed, and pockets the other $75. So now Bob, Joe, and Ed each have $15 amd Fred has $75, and everyone is happy except Ed.

That is all fine and dandy until next round, when Bob, Joe, and Ed have $15, and Fred has spent his $75. He comes back to take some more money, but there isn't the big pile that there was the first time through, so he goes to Lou the loan shark and takes out a loan for $90 in Bob, Joe, and Ed's names, and gives them each another $5 and pockets $75. It is a miracle, he has "created" money. Bob and Joe are happy because they got another $5. Ed is a little leary because he knows what happened the first time, and wonders when things will hit the fan.

Things go fine and dandy for a little while, then the loan comes due, and Bob, Joe, and Ed, with $60 between them are now faced with a bill for $100 (that includes intrest), and they don't have the other $40. Lou tells them that they have the choice of selling themselves into servitude or getting shot in the kneecaps.

Folks, in the real world, they just raised the debt ceiling to $14 Trillion ... Fred has just gone to the loan shark and gotten a loan in our names. We have a choice, when Fred comes to give us our $5, we can take it and wait for Lou to come and offer us slavery or amputation, or we can kick Fred out on his can, take back the money in his pocket and pay back Lou before the loan comes due.

Bill Gates is worth something around $50 Billion. If there were 200 Bill Gates, and the government took ALL their monies. That would still only be $10 Trillion. We would still be $4 Trillion short of being able to pay this off. There are just not enough millionaires and billionaires in this country to pay off all that debt.

In the 1980s, the villians used to be the millionaires, they were the "evil rich" who should be the target of the governmental "Robin Hoods" who would, on our behalf, steal from the rich and give to the poor, us. Then, in the 1990s, some brilliant politician reasoned that if you made $250K a year for 4 years, that was a million dollars, so, in essence, you were a millionaire. The new magic number for the evil rich dropped to $250K. (I hesitate to make this following point for fear that some clever politician will pick it up and run with it ...) Do you realize that if you make $100K for 10 years, that also is a million dollars, so those making $100K are then millionaires. For that matter, if you make $20K for 50 years, that is a million dollars, that makes you a millionaire, too (even though that is about $10K below the poverty level). Ergo, we need to raise the taxes on everyone making over $20K per year, because YOU my friend, have now become part of the "evil rich" millionaires' club. Quake in your boots, I heard that the IRS is looking for thousands of shot guns to help them in those difficult-to-collect cases.

If your child has a piggy bank, I recommend that you hide it quickly, before the census takers get a look at it and report you to the IRS for possible undeclared income.

Buz

Beyond I.Q.

2009-12-18T22:15:00.001-08:00

I.Q. (intelligence quotient) ... we're all familiar with the concept. It is measure of raw intelligence.

But, is it a good predictor of how "smart" someone really is? We're all familiar with the stereotype of a "geek" who can multiply two seven-digit numbers in his head, but doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain. Ben Franklin said, "Jack was so smart he could say 'horse' in seven languages, but so foolish that he road a cow into town."

We call that ability, the one that says, "come in out of the rain," "common sense." Another word for that is "wisdom." You don't even have to be particularly "smart" to be wise. Sometimes all you need is a bit of experience ... "last time it rained, I got soaked to the bone, and caught a bad cold ... so this time, I'll go inside when it starts raining."

Perhaps, when it comes to our leaders, we need to stop focussing so much on I.Q. and instead look at their W.Q. (wisdom quotient). Rather than ask what grades they got in Econ 510 at Harvard, we need to ask do they balance their checkbooks at home and can they keep to a household budget. Maybe how many languages they speak is less important than how often they stick their foot in their mouthes.

We have eleven months before we have to choose our next set of leaders, I think it would be wise of us to listen more to WHAT they say and less to HOW they say it. Maybe next round we can have at least a few who either know what they are doing, or at least enough not to screw up things that they know nothing about.

Buz

We've Been Framed

2009-12-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

It's an old cop story. The police have a suspect that they are "just sure" committed a crime, but they don't have any solid evidence, so they plant some evidence on him and arrest him. The end of the story goes one of two ways ... (1) his defense attorney is able to prove that the evidence was planted and the case is thrown out of court and the police are shamed, or (2) he is convicted, but then, the police later find the true perpetrater, and when he is brought to justice, the person who was framed is exhonorated, and again the police are shamed.

It would appear that the same has been done with scientific data regarding human caused climate change. Evidently there have been some who are so sure that this is happening, but they just don't have any supporting evidence, so they framed us. (Un?)fortunately, the fact that things have been tampered with has come out. And they have been shamed.

If this were a police show on TV, it is time for the judge to throw the case out. However, this may not be the case here. In the U.S. we have always stood on the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, in scientific endeavors, the burden of proof of a theory initially rests with the person or group that proposes a theory. Even as proof mounts up, it still only takes a small amount of proof to the contrary to disprove a theory (i.e. if you claim that all cars are Fords, you can count Fords all day, but all I have to do is show you one Chevy.) It seems that the interim leader of the group in East Anglia, Peter Liss (his predecessor stepped down due to the apparent falsification of evidence) believes:

"LISS: [...] I think it’s very hard to be a denier. And in some sense, you might say it’s really up to the deniers to explain why it is when we’re pumping so much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, why it wouldn’t have such an effect. [...]"

which sounds to me a lot like "we JUST KNOW you are guilty, but we can't prove it ... so it is up to you to prove you are innocent."

What I tell my friends is, "if it wasn't for global warming, we'd be sitting on a glacier by now."

Buz

A Fable

2009-11-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

Once upon a very long time ago, before the animals had lost their ability to reason, a dispute arose between the bear and the snake. The bear was willing to settle the problem by brute force, but the snake, knowing that he would be ripped to shreds in seconds was less willing to fight without some rules. So they went to the council of animals. The council consisted of the donkey, because he was a hard worker, the dog because he was very loyal, the tortoise because of his age, the elephant because of his gentle strength, and the owl because of his wisdom. However, the owl was visiting a sick friend, so only the donkey, the dog, the tortoise, and the elephant were on hand.

“Here is my concern,” voiced the snake. “If the bear is permitted to settle this dispute by force, then we will dissolve into anarchy. I am willing to fight, but the bear has huge claws and sharp teeth. The fight would not be fair, and I should lose in a moment, as would any other animal who would come up against the bear. He could easily become a tyrant.”

“What is your suggestion?” asked the donkey, speaking for the entire council.

“If animals must fight, then I propose that we have a rule. Since not all animals have huge claws or sharp teeth, I submit that no animal be permitted to use these in fights.”

The council thought about this for a moment, and since it seemed fair, they agreed. This especially appealed to the donkey, because he had neither claws nor sharp teeth.

“Furthermore, since some animals, like myself, do not even have arms with which to hit, or legs with which to kick, I also propose that these be banned in fights, also,” added the snake. “Since all animals have bodies, I propose that bodies be the only things which animals are allowed to fight with.”

At this suggestion the council began to voice concern. Even the relatively unarmed donkey still had his ability to kick. To deny him this simple defense seemed to be too much. “Since the owl is not here, I believe that we should wait on ruling on this matter until he returns, sir snake.”

But the snake replied, “surely, something so simple as a fair fight should not require the owl’s great wisdom. I am not asking for some great ruling on complex matters, only a simple ruling on having fair fights in the animal kingdom.” The snake continued to cajole the council trying to force a ruling.

Finally the council conceded that since every animal had a body, the only fair fight would be body to body.

The snake then told the bear he was ready to fight. But, it was no fight. Without his claws and teeth, the bear was quickly crushed in the snake’s coils. The snake then challenged any other animal who might dispute him. He quickly became the tyrant he portrayed the bear to be.

When the owl returned, he found that the snake had deposed the council and was now ruling the forest. Since he was no match for the snake, he fled to the top of a high cliff.

Finally, the fox came to dispute the snake’s tyranny. As they prepared to fight, the snake struck out at the fox. The fox grabbed the snake’s neck with his teeth and began to rip the snake’s body with his claws.

“Unfair!” cried the snake. “You are ignoring the council’s ruling and using your teeth and claws on an animal who has neither teeth nor claws. I am defenseless.”

“Ha,” replied the fox. “You tried to ensure victory by making sure that all animals fought only with their bodies, but our weapons are teeth, claws and hooves. Your body is your weapon. We cannot fight with our bodies, but yours is made for fighting. I will not give up my weapons while allowing you to use yours. The council may have been duped by your cunning words, but I am not.” With that, he finished off the snake.

I'm back ...

2007-12-20T19:59:00.001-08:00

Well, I had two hard drive crashes in succession. That, along with a heavy work schedule have put me out of the blogging business for several months. But, since I have gotten no comments, am I to conclude that:
- everyone is perfecly satisfied with the status quo,
- no one wants better representatives, we all want worse ones,
- we want better representatives, but we want them without the personal burden of being a better person, or
- you think that I am way off base, and the people that we are has nothing to do we the leaders we elect?

I don't see any other choices in the matter ... do you?

Buz

For Better or Worse?

2007-07-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

I want you to be 100% honest. Do you think that man as an individual is better than man was, say 3500 years ago in Egypt. Don't make your decision based on US standards. Look at the world in its entirety. Compare the Egyptians driving their slaves to build the pyramids ... the constant wars with their neighbors to invade or repel invaders. Are we really any different than they were? Are we different inside? Are our motives any different, any more noble than theirs? We have made technological strides. They had horse carts and charriots; we have trucks and automobiles. They had bows and arrows and spears; we have rifles and rocket propelled grenades. They had war; we have war. They had taxes; we have taxes. Their rulers thought they were gods; our rulers act like they are gods.

Have we changed at all in 3500 years? Is there one ray of hope that we will change in the next 3500 years? Can mankind go through 7000 years of existance and not gain one iota of insight about himself?

So far, the one thing that we have looked to that it might enlighten us, science, has brought us advances in medicine, chemistry, and biology to keep our bodies alive, cosmology to tell us that there may be other worlds like ours, and physics to give us the weapons to destroy ourselves and any other civilizations we might encounter should we visit other planets.

Where is our hope? To what or to whom can we look to change man ... not just mankind in general, but each individual person ... you and me? Is it possible? Can it be done before we are glowing bits of dust?

If it is possible, is it something we will do? Will we do it out of desire or desparation, or not do it at all? Are we too comfortable with where we are? A person once told me that until the pain of staying the same is worse than the pain of changing, we will not change. What if the pain of staying the same comes too late for us to change? Is it already too late?

If it isn't too late:
- What needs to happen to convince us we need to change?
- How must we change ourselves?
- What are we willing to do to change?

Buz

So What Is the Answer?

2007-06-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

How do we get better people as candidates?

Simple, we must be better people. We must raise our own personal standards. We must rediscover what the difference between right and wrong are, and invest ourselves in what is right. We cannot expect our leaders to lead a great country if we are not a great people, because we are the country. And we certainly cannot expect great leaders if we are not ourselves great people, because our leaders reflect who we are.

Don't mistake this as a charge to go fix whatever is wrong with your neighbor or your brother-in-law. No, you have the responsibility for YOU. It is your job to make yourself a better person. Let your neighbor worry about making himself a better person.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George Bush, John Kerry, Tom McCain, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, they are us. No more. No less. They represent our hopes, our fears, our generosity, our greed, our nobility, our ignominity.

During the last campaign, a series of ads ran dealing with the question of fetal stem-cell research, and the question was asked about certain representatives, "who are they to decide? They are not doctors or scientists, why should they have a say?"

That does raise an interesting question, who are they to decide?

Well, in short, they ARE the people who we have elected to decide. From my point of view, while I trust my doctor to deal with my health, and while I trust scientists to scratch the surface of the universe and look beneath, neither are well noted for, nor is it their job to look down the road of time in our society and see just where this path leads. That is what our congress is SUPPOSED to do. They are supposed to use their intellect and concern for the future of society and divine where this road will lead. Will it take us to new heights of enlightenment or will it take us into the depths of social slavery? Will it lead to perfect health for all or to the canibalism of the less fortunate for the benenfit of the privileged few.

Take a minute to understand that position. Our leaders are SUPPOSED to be our moral guides, our compass when things are beyond our grasp. That is why one of the most important decisions they have is the decision as to when to go to war. We certainly don't leave that to the Generals or the Admirals. They are charges with winning the war, but not with starting or ending it. (For the same reason doctors are not given the authority to assist suicides nor scientists the decision to clone human beings ... because the outcome of those decisions greatly affect all of society, not just the one person on the verge of death or the verge of duplication.)

Do you trust the leaders we have today to make those decisions? If you weren't able to answer yes, then you have a problem. Because, they ARE going to make those decisions whether you trust them to do it the right way or not. I suggest that you go back to step 1, and work on making yourself a better person. If we all do that, then maybe a few years down the road, we will be worthy of leaders who will be trustworthy to make the right decisions.

Buz

The Part We Don't Like

2007-06-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

In the last post, I said that there were two parts to the loss in societal morality ... licentiousness is the part that excites many, and that we, as a society are willing, or maybe even a little eager to live with.

What is the other side of this coin - the part we don't like? It is the decay in our leadership. We are thoroughly disgusted with the fact that our leaders promise us they will do this, and then they do the opposite. It is so ingrained in our society that we have a name for it, a "campaign promise", which is a euphemism for "say anything you want to get elected and then do what you had always planned on doing". (This is part of the reason that negative campaign adds work so well, we ignore what candidates tell us they will do, because we "know" they are lying ... the only thing that gets our attention is that the other person might be even worse than this one.)

How do this relate to the previous post? Simple. We, the American people are inch by inch, foot by foot, and yard by yard, losing our moral footing. As we do, we elect leaders who are like us. The more we want our "freedom" to indulge in personal immorality (sorry, I believe this is now called "pushing the envelope") the more likely we are to avoid candidates who take personal and societal morals seriously. Basically we don't want anyone to tell us that we can't do that which we want to do.

Have you ever heard someone say "don't judge me", "you can't judge me", or "you don't have a right to judge me"? I find it interesting that no one ever says that right after donating $1000 to the Red Cross, or after running into a burning house to save a child. No, they always say that after some shameful act. It would seem to me that they have personally judged what they did and have found it shameful in their own eyes, and then they are pleading for public acceptance to justify their deeds to themselves.

We have more and more members of our society demanding that we ignore or worse, condone, their immorality, and we, because of apathy, comply. Then, in return, we expect others to overlook ours.
So, what's the answer? How do we turn it around?

Buz

Global Warming

2007-05-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Do you believe in Global Climate Change?

The threat of Global Climate Change is not that things will heat up and turn us all to toast by next summer, nor is it that things will cool off this winter such that the snow we get will start the base of a glacier which will not melt for 10,000 years.

No, the threat of Global Climate Change is that it will raise 0.025 degrees this summer, and another 0.025 degrees next summer. This will keep going so that in a decade the temperature will have risen 0.25 degrees. Hardly something that anyone would notice. The oceans will get just a tiny bit warmer and the polar ice caps will melt just a little more than they freeze next winter. In 10 or 15 years, if the water is a bit warmer, we would probably enjoy swimming in it all the more.

In 50 or 100 years, we will just begin to see the difference, when the temperature is 2.5 degrees higer than it is today and sea level has risen by a foot. By that time, it may be too late to reverse the process. Some of the most fertile areas of the world may no longer support agriculture and starvation may be imminent.

We're funny, in a way. If someone told us that they were going to take a hammer and smash our thumb, it would anger or frighten us. But if someone told us that they were going to take a million cars an make our environment unlivable in 500 years, we would probably shrug and ignore them. We are more concerned about the small inconveniences which are happening now than the enormous tragedies which are some unspecified time in the future.

Something far more serious than the threat of Global Climate Change has already struck our society. We observe two different things and we don't tie them together. We are outraged at one and tittilated by the other. For the past 60 years we have undergone a Societal Morality Change.

Let me begin this discussion by saying that "YES, there have always been corrupt people in government, there have always been people cheating on their spouses, and there have always been murders". Just as even in the height of the "little ice age" which hit northern Europe in the 1700s, there were warm days.

However, we have come to a point in our society where we don't see the wrong in some immorality, nor do we see the connection between one form of immorality and another.

I will grant you that I am an old codger, so I learned the basics of morality in a different era than is prevalent today. However, I am disappointed by the ignorance which thinks that just because our level of technology has changed, the human psyche has changed. For 3000 to 4000 years, it has been considered imoral for one person to attempt to seduce another without the intent of marriage; today, we not only have a divorce rate of over 50%, we have people living together and having children without being married at all.

I can hear your comments now ... "don't be such a prude", "don't be so naive".

How about we apply those same comments to the doomsayers who tell us that Global Climate Change will destroy the earth. "Don't be so naive!"

"Ah, but they have proof. The water is warmer in certain parts of the world and undersea life is being affected."

I have proof. A lot of kids are being raised at the poverty level, dropping out of school and dropping out of life because of the broken homes.

"Ah, but the kids aren't saying that their problems are due to the broken homes ... it's stuff like peer pressure at school ... life is harder for kids than when you were a kid."

The fish aren't complaining about the temperature, either ... but it is harder to find food at time, and sometimes it is harder to breathe. Life is harder for fish than when I was a kid.

"But I want to do what I want to do with out somebody judging me and telling me I'm being immoral!"

Hey, I want to dump the oil I drained out of my car in my back yard with out someone telling me I'm polluting!

"But you ARE polluting!"

Just by your standards ... but you ARE being immoral.

"Just by your standards. And besides, lots of people, like the EPA, say that it is polluting to dump oil in your back yard."

Just as the standards of most civilizations going back nearly 4000 years tie marriage and sex and family together.

"Yeah, but what do they know ... that was a long time ago and things are different now."

Oh, you mean that having casual sex and using another human being simply to satisfy your own desires isn't the same disregard for another's humanity as it was 3500 years ago.

"Naw, it's not like that 'cause like they want it, too."

So, mutually using each other while denying the ultimate humanity of the other person is OK so long as you both do it?

"Well, something like that, I guess."

I rest my case. We have gone beyond immorality to the point where we don't even know what morality is.

Buz