I read an interesting news story today about several mad Iranian bombers trying to start some mischief in Bangkok, Thailand in retaliation for the existence of Israel or some other undefined offense against Iran. To do this the three miscreants had rented a house and commenced to obtain explosives and bomb making hardware. Unfortunately, they had no knowledge of, or respect for, the customs of people in Thailand.
I understand from ‘sources’ that as they were leaving the house on their ‘Mission’, they attempted to hail an empty cab by raising an arm, index finger pointed skyward, and waving them at the taxi driver, who smiled broadly and continued on his way. This gesture with their arms is offensive to the Thais, much like raising the middle finger at someone in America. Ignorant of this cultural protocol, one bomber attempted to hurl his bomb at the departing cab, but missed, blowing a gaping hole in the pavement. A huge crowd of Thais began to gather at the scene.
The man then attempted to throw another bomb and it detonated prematurely, blowing off one of his legs, which flew through the air and landed on the head of a nearby statue of the Buddha.
The other two bombers stared in amazement at the gathering crowd, all of whom were smiling. The bombers didn’t realize that the gentle people of Thailand smile in almost any social situation. One could be smiling at you while he hates your guts and will kill you at the first opportunity. You just don’t know what is lurking behind the smile.
The police arrived, and patiently waited for the wounded bomber to finish tying a tourniquet on the remains of his leg. One of the cops said, “You’re under arrest for disrespecting the Buddha.” The other bombers retreated back into the house in confusion and one threw his bomb at the police, who were all smiling by now. It didn’t quite make it out the door and detonated inside of the house, hurling more body parts through the air.
Meanwhile, the ambulance collected the first bomber and his offending limb from the Buddha, and delivered him to a nearby hospital where the wounded bomber bravely tried to refuse treatment. When the surgeon asked why the weeping man said, “ Just let me die; I’m through in the terrorism business now. No one but Cy Young, the decadent American baseball player, can throw anything while standing on one leg.”
“Well, okay.” The surgeon replied jovially, removing his surgical gloves, mask and gown.
The bomber looked at the surgeon in stunned disbelief “You’re not Thai; are you?”
Over the six years that I have been writing this blog, I have turned off many readers with my posts of gloom and doom. It didn’t start out that way; If you read the early posts (in the archive), I made a lot of effort to dispel false notions of the past and reveal or apply the things we have learned in science and anthropology/sociology over the last 100 years to the problems that we face as a global human society. Most posts were positive and offered solutions, and when I got dull stares (no responses to the post) or religious and/or political outrage, I reverted to my own type of tutorials complete with images (not my own) to reinforce in a simple way the point I was trying to make.
Lately, because of my advanced age and health issues, I have lost the fire in my belly to fight the good fight. Instead, I have been considering simply discontinuing the blog and focusing on other things.
But, trigger events have taken place recently that to me, indicate the social acrimony I feared is coming to pass. As an example, consider recent events in Egypt. Inspired by the revolution in Tunisia, the folks there rebelled against a totalitarian government and embraced the principles of democracy. Unfortunately, they didn’t understand what these principles really are because they have never experienced the system. They could see the benefits of this social structure, but with several thousand years of oppression, didn’t know what was valuable to emulate; what was important above all, and what to discard.
It begins simply with their treatment of women. They are still viewed as property to be used and abused by the men. The military there sees itself as better leaders of the new society that is forming, and does not trust the citizens to know what is best for them. Civil unrest continues and with the killing of Christians, torture of prisoners, and the Muslim Brotherhood becoming prominent again, civil war could breakout at any time. Bad habits are hard to break.
I look at the mighty countries of China and Russia who cling to obsolete political philosophies, and clamp down on anyone or any group that interferes with the State’s vision of the future and the schemes of the politicians to perpetuate their rule. The rule of law is still a concept beyond their grasp. It is sad, because the citizens there deserve more and given the chance, they can elevate these countries to a greatness that is unimaginable today.
And in the USA, we are now faced with ‘State-controlled capitalism’ that is destroying the free enterprise system. We are told tales that are not entirely unfalse by the Lamestream Media, who distorts rather than reports the news, and young citizens are ignorant and fearful as can be seen by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstrators who don’t have a clue. Their frustration just compounds the problems of the folks who are trying to maintain a just civil order (as they understand it—a whole different subject). This has culminated in the sneaky enactment of legislation on New Year’s eve that allows the U.S. Military to police the cities and states of the country for the first time since the Constitution was first written. Obviously, the government is fearful of a repeat on American soil of what happened in Libya and Egypt . Here is an audio clip of my favorite guy that calls bullshit on what is happening. I’ll let him speak for both of us.
Long-time readers of this blog know that I have penned numerous posts on climate change since 2005. However, I have flip-flopped in my views like a fish out of water. First, I tried to counter the Al Gore inspired ‘We’re all gonna die!’ global warming rhetoric with science that was being ignored by researchers hungry for more government panic grants.
Later, I tweeked and refined my view based on new information from NASA satellites that study the Sun, the Earth’s albedo, and NOAA high altitude flight studies, just to make sure I didn’t sound like a complete fool. Luckily, I have remained only a partial fool, but everyone knows the climate is still a huge mystery, with hucksters on every corner trying to sell us their particular bill of goods.
Well, today we got a glimpse of the straight skinny on things, as scientists have finally figured out for sure what caused the ‘Little Ice Age’ in the middle of the last millennium. The BBC on-line news is reporting today that this frigid event that lasted for decades was the result of periodic volcanic eruptions. The first of these periods saw four large volcanic eruptions beginning in 1256, probably from known tropical sources, although the exact locations have not been determined.
Now, this just delighted me, because I have been fretting about the Milankovitch cycle of changes in the earth’s orbit and planetary tilt. The current 15,000-year interglacial warming period is due to end soon, at which point another 100,000 year ice age will begin. So much for global warming, and the panicked measures being proposed to arrest it. In this reality, the mile-high glaciers march out from the earth’s poles once again, destroying human civilization and most other species’ habitats in the process.
Humans desperately need to invent a thermostat to control earth’s temperature swings, and now we know how to do it: If it gets too hot, fire up the air conditioner in the basement with a few induced volcanic eruptions; and if it gets too cold, fire up the old fossil-fuel power plants, build a bunch of gas guzzling SUVs, and offer tax credits to citizens that build Hollywood-style hot tubs in the back yard.
My Opera
