The old man and the wolves

 Reading this: http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/282833431.html, and inside my brain statistical hairs start standing on end, bells go off, and finally, a plague of mathematical modelling locusts descends and places the land into darkness. I read the original article with supplements here: http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70122639.

Rolling my R's...It is Crrrap. A 90% confidence interval for population estimates varying by up 5000 individual moose using two different survey methods the authors admit are not compatible, then evaluating variables using a "simple simulation study" for comparing the variables by what is experimental computation? Let me say this, I don't know who the reviewers were, but if I tried to pass off these methods, I should be laughed out of the room. When you have those kinds of error estimates with this sort of modest population size, then start using assumptive linear models to get p-values out of this, it is garbage. I The only way this was published was by his old name and employer. Before a reporter even dares start putting this opinion up, he needs a second opinion.

Celebrating Conquest is appropriate

A central myth of America's origins is the concept of the United States being somehow "different" or exceptional; this is at the core of our politics, and as much a myth as any other origin story. Reagan, the "Great Communicator", actually said very little of any substance based in reality. Instead, he repeated the myths that many Americans believe religiously, much like Dale Carnegie taught salesman. The cynical, gullible and indoctrinated lapped it as dog in gravy.

The United States, and the founders were neither different or exceptional. Our history, from the beginning, has as much been a conquest as any other nation state, ours built on the genocide of the natives, the enslavement of blacks and natives and the exploitation of poor whites. The founders cared not for "democracy" and in fact were terrified of it, thus the Republic. George Washington's central concern was property rights  across the Appalachians, taken from the natives and the hopeful profits derived more than anything else.

With this history, Columbus Day is actually an appropriate holiday to celebrate, for it honors a bloodthirsty, profit seeking European willing to exploit, murder and torture merely for his own enrichment and amusement, something at the very core of the United States culture as it was built on the genocide of the natives, the enslavement of blacks and natives and the exploitation of poor whites.  The view of natives and others as subhuman is just as much  American as it was of Columbus'. 

Welfare to Work...

Since Paul Ryan has shown such great concern for the poor and their deficiencies, I thought I would advocate for a new welfare to work program for those who truly don't know how: the children of the wealthy and well connected,  trust fund babies such as the poor Walton family children and Paris Hilton or legacies such Mika Brezenski and George W. Bush.  In local politics, we have Stewart Mills III, scion of Fleet Farm, graduate of the Amway-DeVos Northwoods University, aka the " Ayn Rand Institute for indoctrination of trust fund justification".

These people, having never learned the value of thrift and climbing  the ladder by intelligence, discipline and hard work,  raised at the hands of a pernicious private welfare state created by their forebears, oft by theft, swindle, government subsidy or just plain luck, have had to suffer the indignation of "getting a gold medal because their Grandfather won one" or "being born on third base and hitting a triple".

Oh the things they have suffered and  never experienced.

Forced to get debt-free Vanity degrees from private schools with guaranteed graduation and never having had to expedite financial aid to purchase food.

Never having had to choose strategic options for funding one's education such as high rate student loans or joining the military.

Never having had to actually work at whatever job is available, such as scrubbing toilets or scraping gum off the bottom of desks, rather than living vicariously and choosing  options such as a summer "helping out at a pet spa". Or, having had to work at three jobs while taking summer classes.

Learning math through calculating how long one's school debt will accumulate as any job obtained will never provide enough income to actually pay it off.

Or, choosing whether to fix the tail light or pay the car insurance, despite the probability of being stopped by the police because the piece of crap looks "suspicious".

Having to choose jobs that go against one's value system or serve some psychopathic monster just to earn a living because of the debt and the ridiculous system we live in.

No, these poor ingenue have never had to learn these lessons. Never having reached their full abilities due to this horrifying caste system, it is time to remove the illegitimate life support system which weakens them and cast them into the maelstrom of life, forcing them to make the same hard, dignified choices the ordinary must make so they can learn the value of hard work.

An estate tax of 90% for any value over $200,000 should suffice, as it allows them to fund an education or start a business. But, they will have to do something, and that will be for their own benefit. The rest can be doled out in small amounts by random lottery to other taxpayers, since knowing modern state capitalism, that's who it was likely stolen from from .

They, and the world, will be better for it.

Awaitng the Rapture

Scariest site of the day: Rapture watch. Complete with clock.
Since childhood, I wondered why so many were obsessed with prophecies based on the mistaken, lunatic mistranslations by whackjobs who can't read classical Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic. No, they say, if we search through the hidden meanings by taking the sixth letter of all three syllable words in the ravings of the island lunatic John of Patmos, author of revelations, transpose them with a mirror during a full moon,  vague references involving a herd of pigs, why not to slay goats on the shabbat and how to wipe your ass with a hot desert rock are found. Entire groups of people base their lives on this tripe, hoping and praying the imaginary deity will come and kill those who gave them wedgies in high school while mysteriously sparing the righteous, which always includes them no matter how many underage girls they've married in an illegal ceremony.

Always anticipating, finding signs, but never acknowledging it has been over 2000 years they've been waiting, that is if their deity actually ever existed. The end times may come, but not with a hail of imaginary trumpets and your grade school enemies dying, but in really high fuel prices, slums, economic turmoil, pollution, hunger, expensive food and right wing paramilitary squads paid by the rich to keep the poor from climbing the ramparts. Yes, Jesus is coming, but he's in El Salvador working as a guard for the oligarchs.

Food Taboos

All creatures eat other living beings. Everyone and everything is merely someone else's potential energy source, and in the world's view, I have no more value than the rotting carcass of any other large omnivore to be devoured by carrion beetles and assorted corvidae. Grass is as much a living being as any doe eyed fawn; we never mourn the grass or the white cedar as the deer eats them, however, since we don't value them in this culture; We don't place moral value on them. We usually reserve this for sentient beings with eyes and are similar to us. Thus dogs are no longer a work animal and potential food as they once were, but are instead bred into weird shapes that serve no purpose and can't survive without human intervention, dressing them up in costumes and calling them children. The same is true for guinea pigs, which are actually a source of food. Most of these taboos are merely derived from wealth and culture. They are really the mere privilege of a very large industrial machine  devouring everything on earth to produce boxed and frozen food. Almonds for humans have demolished habitat, require mass pollination and have no more moral value than any other large scale agricultural enterprise. We simply think they are better because almonds don't have pretty eyes and nurse their young, so people don't think they are killing anything. But they did; they destroyed thousands of acres of habitat for the monoculture, just as much as they bulldozed it into a mall and paved it. They have to import pollinators in the millions just to keep the entire enterprise going. Humans now use about 58% of the world's photo-energy for agriculture and that still isn't enough; we have to make nitrogen via the Haber process, use fossil fuels for production and transportation and mine all the materials in order to use it, from transportation to storage. No matter who you are, and especially if you live in the U.S., you are using whole pieces of the finite earth just to keep your gullet full. No one, except for the few hunter-gatherers left, is any more moral then the other, organic lettuce grown in human fecal compost not with standing.

I do know this; given a week or so without access to a grocery store, all sorts of moral taboos would disappear. Animals with big brown eyes would suddenly become edible to many. Many animals not thought of as food who also have big brown eyes would  become edible. Suckers, thought of as garbage fish, might suddenly become gourmet. Given a few more weeks, dogs would no longer be dressed in costumes. They would end up in stew or on a spit and served with onions. Anyone in the U.S. who claims different is laughable as they simply have not known hunger. After the woods and waters have been picked clean, which would be much faster than anyone thinks, certain other delicacies would arise with no cultural taboo; organic kale has very little value if you are ready to gnaw on tree bark.

The Travelers

I have a possible solution to the Central American child refugee problem that combines with a Para-Darwinian experiment. To make room for said children, we will trade the countries an equal number of immigration protesters. We will be ridding ourselves of half-witted intellectually deficient dead weight and upgrading the nations mean IQ. The H0 hypothesis is there would be no difference in the survival rate between the two populations after the first six months. I consider this doubtful as a group of children, already having been born and surviving the dangers of childhood disease, dealing with CIA created criminals, a train ride on top of freight cars and managing to make it to our border obviously has superior capabilities than a group of people who, despite the benefits of vaccination, education and fluoride, still can't compose a cogent sentence, take care of their teeth, read the documents they misquote and routinely believe conspiracy theories linking the UN, the Masons and lizard people. I am fairly sure we would find nothing but a trail of bones as a half hour into the exchange, they would insult locals, demand bottled water and, complaining of why no one speaks English in this country, be shot out of p!ain irritation.

Apekind

While others may fear other "apes" taking over, I don't. There is no possible way any of the other ape species (yes,we are one, albeit upright and sometimes hairless) could be as selfish, venal, stupid, deceiving or as easily distracted and entertained by stupidity as Homo sapiens americanus moronicus. Gorillas being impressed by shiny new truck rims or riding around dressed similarly, all on the same brand of motorcycle at the same time declaring individuality and freedom? Only a human being could deceive themselves so fundamentally. The chimpanzee, any more violent than the rapacious, blood lusting lunacy ( watch any boxing or mma audience) of the human being who makes killing an art form and justifies it by declaring it as "defensive"...a society that drops fire on stone age people then rewards the doers with medals for "courage"? No,even the flesh eating, sometimes violent chimpanzee is much more peaceful. The Orangutan? Intelligent and deliberately avoiding conflict while brachiating and eating fruit? . The Bonobo, capable of complex, symbolic language use and social negotiation? Look at the first ten rows of any monster truck or wrestling audience and make a comparison about social cohesion or intelligence along with the need for dental work. There is no contest. Hell...just looking across the street or watching a right wing news show tells me I would be better off with another species running the show. Perhaps not even another ape species...maybe another primate..dolphins...oh hell a predatory starfish. At least I wouldn't have to watch an ice dancing competition or a nascar race.

Refugees, blowback and the Sorrows of Empire

Chalmers Johnson in his book 'Blowback" wrote of the possible future disasters brought on by U.S. Foreign policy, both military and covert. Central America, the focus of U.S. covert action ( though it was well known), was and still is a collection of oppressive failed states; El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were also the largest receivers of U.S. aid and assistance. Oddly enough, Nicaragua, though still poverty stricken, survived the years of U.S assisted attacks and disruption much more stable than its neighbors. The record, whether the Marine occupation of Nicaragua, the support of the El Salvadoran oligarchs, Rios Montt and the Contras, is bloodshed and social destruction. The refugees are running from the violence of gang run failed states, a direct consequence of U.S. intervention. They are the consequence, the blowback, of U.S. "intervention",in reality  the backflow of empire. The Barbarians are at the gate, in the form of child refugees. They are Ronald Reagan's orphans.

Reagan's Orphans

The irony of the latest "Immigration Crisis". e.g. the children now appearing in huge numbers from Central America is that both protesters and the children are refugees from the Reagan years. Incomes for most  in the U.S. since the 1980's have fallen; the children, and most Central American Immigrants, are refugees from the United States policies of the 1980's. This should be viewed as "blowback", or the consequences of the United States empire. We are, in many ways, all Reagan's orphans.

Tattoo Ennui

The new meme should actually be: Non-tattooed people are sick of people who are obsessed with their tattoos. It is nothing more than navel gazing. So are piercings.

The Irony of Save our Steel

Save our Steel, a United Steelworkers project against the dumping of tubular steel by foreign countries, especially South Korea, shows the failure or lack of any rational Industrial or climate policy by the United States. The steelworkers are not at fault as they merely try to withstand the brutal world economic system with little help from our government, or more often, as they fight our government from not selling off half the country from under our feet. The irony is this; Fracking, with both known and unknown environmental consequences, is akin to scraping the corn stalks off a field and boiling them for food. It is a hydrocarbon refrigerator of  month old leftovers for supper, and many of the direct consequences may not not be known from some time. It is also a perfect example of capitalism's irrationality,  maximizing the extraction of carbon while climate change works constantly in the background. Thus the irony; citizens and workers forced to fight for the right to save their jobs while destroying the very planet they live on, piece by piece. This shows how much humanity has overextended itself; one part of the population destroying a  part of the world so another population somewhere else can use what they take from it in exchange for their own destructive extraction.

Burwell Vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

Decision Here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf


The concept of religious freedom ( or "rights") is akin to a child justifying their actions based on what an imaginary friend told them to do. The problem with all religions is the imaginary friend justifies all sorts of murderous, oppressive, idiotic unjustified bs as defined by whatever psychopathic adult(s) happens to roam the street and attracts the most weak minded, emotionally needy followers. None of the books, or the beliefs, are special. The Abrahamic, monotheistic religions are still the frightening fairy tales of stone age, desert lunatics who didn't understand fermentation, thought leprosy was caused by mold and sold their daughters into slavery to pay off debts. Catholicism, derived from the hybridization of a failing Roman Empire and the organized cult of wandering imaginary Messiah worshippers, is its still existing corrupt, money holding, sexually disturbed, child molesting descendent. Intermixed with modern legal theory and the concept of corporation (or property) as person, and you get today's decision. Of course it is illogical and unjustified, because it's moral and legal underpinnings are from those who have to twist and turn to justify their unjustifiable beliefs: " These people, who believe their imaginary friend says this (though nothing is actually said because the concept of a contraceptive is not even mentioned in the ravings of the ancient, ignorant, lunatics who passed these scribblings on) and own property that pays other people, shouldn't have to pay for this part of what they think their imaginary friend says". It doesn't make sense as it is second century thought imposing itself on a 21st century world. It has to justify stupid, ancient beliefs while imposing its social relations on the modern world's socio-economic relations, while colliding with modern science and altered social relationships; one might as well define a fish in biblical terms, while at the same time studying its phylogenetic tree.

Of course people are doing heroin; our lives now consist of doing mindless, boring non-rewarding tasks for no pay and to get other people rich.

So, while waiting for something to process, I choose to visit the "Open Carry Texas" website. Go to the photos, as the writing and statement logic rivals that of a TBI Sea Cucumber, analogous to listening to Styx's Mr. Roboto backwards while suffering food poisoning. My neighbor's terrier complained of the grammar. To the photos; they consist of various white trash ( there isn't anyone with a single bit of melanin) in public places with assault "style" weapons. Afterall, I feel in such grave danger at dairy queen that my greatest fear is not a 17 year old girl hitting me in the parking lot while she texts her friend, but the possibility that at any moment, I need a multi-round magazine in case an l-shaped ambush breaks out. Now my greatest fear is some halfwit who can't spell the word "Constitution" and believes the founding fathers were White Aryan Christians is going to pull something because the cartoon tattooed, nail-chewing, underwear pulling mother of his halfwits looked at someone with the wrong last name for five seconds too long.

And for important St. Louis county business, we get this: http://bit.ly/1hZRrfx. Of course, as the story says, many local city councils and now the county have passed resolutions against any Polymet review. What bearing this has on the final process is questionable, of course.

But there are other important questions:

1: Why are local government, county and state officials acting as publicly funded lobbyists for  private, multinational backed mining firms?
2: How many of these officials have stock, or potential personal and business benefits. How about their friends and acquaintances?
3: How much other important business  and how many other alternatives  for economic development are ignored?

The Range is not alone in these problems; in fact, they are global in nature, and resource extraction based communities all have similar problems. But, the Range's problems are also historically specific to both mining and logging. The artificial boom of the 60's and 70's was a Potemkin village; built and operated at cost-plus, with feather-bedded workforces and rampant theft, the building and expansion construction booms were due to end. Following Herbert Stein's famous quote: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,". The seniority system gave most of the jobs remaining to first wave baby-boomers, thus an entire generation left starting in the 1980's and we now see the results.

Desperate for the days of easy money, local officials now push for their and their friend's personal profit at the expense of everyone else and the natural environment. Using their publicly funded positions, they now spend our tax dollars and time forcing this and other projects down the public throat, all while feasting at the public trough, whether in pay or subsidies.