Authoritarians

02 Wednesday Aug 2023

Posted by in Dictators

≈ Leave a comment

        My Webster’s Dictionary defines an authoritarian as an adjective meaning “as believing in or characterized by absolute obedience to authority.” We have two basic types of authoritarians today. One is Russia’s President Vladimir Putin where politburo/parliament dares not to disagree with him making him a dictator in name. China’s President Xi Jinping has a stronger Communist Party to enforce his demands.

            Several countries of lesser status like Venezuela and Cuba have authoritarians. Some are controlling all functions and law enforcement in their countries. Israel and other countries have rewritten or reinterpreted their constitutions. Among those are India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan. Dissent in those countries is dealt with extra judicial means.

            The one connecting thought among all of those men is they are openly friendly and supportive of each other as a way of showing strength to stay in power even if their former laws limited their time in office. Those who lost their elections have all declared the election was fraudulent and crooked. When they are investigated they claim it is a witch hunt. Do the words sound familiar? Maybe it is because the same political advisors for Trump have worked in other countries. Most, if not all, have constitutions or laws preventing their head of state from being jailed. That is one reason Netanyahoo of Israel courted the far right to get back to Prime Minister. Does that sound familiar in this country? Postpone, delay, stall and hope to be sworn in on January 20, 2025 and protected at least four more years or until death.

Retro Supreme Court

21 Friday Jul 2023

Posted by in Supreme Court, US Supreme Court

≈ Leave a comment

        This Supreme Court is stacked to take the United States back to when the Constitution was written. That means back to when women were little more than chattel and did not have many rights including voting. Remember Asians weren’t counted and Blacks were only counted as three fifths and had no rights.

            This court is working hard to change decisions previous courts have decided in the past. Any past decisions requiring equality is in danger. Diversity in education has already been overturned in colleges so grade and high schools may be next. Image going back to segregated schools by overturning Brown v.. Board of Education.

            The unstated effect of the college decision is it can be applied to businesses. Race, ethnic, and gender equality in hiring could be in danger from that decision or the next, using it as the basis. If a white man applies for a job the company had better have a defensible reason to hire him over another race, ethnic or gender.

            Other cases they might decide to change are Griswold v. State of Connecticut, Miranda v. Arizona, Loving v. State of Virginia, U.S. v. Nixon, and Bowers v. Hardwick, among others. Conservatives, especially those radical ones, will push the Court to overturn these decisions. At least twenty other decisions would please those who support the Supreme Court Justices. Perhaps a few more vacations, real estate deals, and highly paid speeches could get that accomplished.

Support the Ukraine

21 Friday Jul 2023

Posted by in Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

        I am tired of novice or inexperienced journalists reporting on subjects they know little about and didn’t take the time to do some research. The latest is how cluster bombs are going to reap havoc on civilians when the Ukraine artillery fire them at the Russian invaders.

            The Russians have been using cluster bombs from aircraft, from cruise missiles, and artillery on towns and cities far from the front. The Ukrainians will use the weapons on the trenches and troop concentrations where that type of munitions is best used.

            Since the bomblets are going to be used on Ukrainian land, they will record the location for future inspection and demolition of any unexplored ordinance. The Russians use it as a terror weapon against civilians and the more bomblets that didn’t explode on contact the better for the terror effect.

            For those novice reporters to use in their future reporting, more soldiers were killed in World War I and II by artillery than guns. The same is probably true of Viet Nam and the current war. Both sides are firing thousands of rounds each day.

            The reason why the cluster shells from the rockets and artillery is needed is to blow holes through the extensive Russian mine fields and trench defenses.

            We need to do everything we can short of putting troops into the Ukraine during the war. It serves our National Security against our “Enemies” now and in the future. Those who think their disruptions in Congress and Senate will benefit them at the expense of America’s security should be shunned.          

Two Behind and One to the Right

11 Tuesday Jul 2023

Posted by in Women's Rights

≈ Leave a comment

        Two steps behind and one step to the right is where wives were supposed to be when walking with their husbands. That was and is still the way some religious people treated their women in this country. Maybe that philosophy is the basis for the few jobs women were permitted to have. Few women had more than menial jobs outside the home. The glass ceiling is the modern version of bias against women and in particular, single women.

            I can still remember when the men I worked with during the 1960s summer jobs said all women should be kept barefoot and pregnant. The idea was to keep the women in the house taking care of the kids and the home. The husband was supposed to have the job and give the women enough money to manage the home expenses.

            Things have changed more than many people are aware and more than what some would like. Many of America’s largest corporations are run by women now. Women are now in politics, police, fire, doctors, lawyers and other professions. Women are in the combat roles in the military and driving those monstrous big rigs and bulldozers.

            It is not just my baby boomer generation and earlier men who don’t like it. The Southern Baptist Convention just ruled women could not be ministers. When I was a kid they were the church that believed a woman’s place is in the home. Seems like they have come back around to the 1950s where some men I know still live. The Far Right wing of the Republican Party and some of the radical organizations have that philosophy in their agendas.   

06 Thursday Jul 2023

Posted by in Chinese Theft, Electric Cars

≈ Leave a comment

Chinese Technology

        I read an article in one of my Cellulose devices about how we allowed China to become dominate in two industries we need today. Both of those industries have to do with reducing our carbon footprint. We need lithium batteries and solar cells which is a field China and its companies have economic control.

            News junkies and greenies remember Solyndra got over a half billion from former President Barack Obama’s administration  to produce solar cells but went bankrupt. Why couldn’t they be profitable? Maybe because China sold heavily subsidized panels to America and other countries at a far cheaper price than the higher technology panels Solyndra was making under their patent. When they went into bankruptcy the Chinese scooped up the patent so now we are buying panels from China using the patent.

            A Texas Company came up with an idea on how to make high tech batteries for the upcoming demand from electric vehicles. AI23 got massive subsidies from American government to produce Lithium compound batteries in the 1990s but the EVs hadn’t yet started to be big sellers. They went down too. Today a Chinese lithium compound battery manufacturer is building a huge plant in Michigan to supply advanced batteries for 400,000 EVs each year. The technology was AI23s!

            This isn’t simple industrial espionage; it is a simple case of our selling or giving away advanced technologies of the future. What else have we let China have?           

American War

06 Thursday Jul 2023

Posted by in Gun Control

≈ Leave a comment

        Every morning we get two death counts on the news. One is the number of civilians the Russians killed with their missiles, exploding drones, and artillery in the Ukraine War. The other is the number of Americans shot in just mass shootings. The mass shootings numbers are only those events with four or more people shot. Why is the American number often higher than the Ukraine?

            Is America an undeclared war zone? Is it the war against the people by the gun lobbies and manufacturers? We have had truces in the past which reduced the number greatly but they expired. Are our politicians too scared of losing the gun lobbies and their conned membership’s financial support? The fast majority of voters want Congress to pass laws on what guns civilians can own so why isn’t anything being done?

            Thirty people were shot at a block party one evening along with three other mass shootings. That day was just a blip in the news cycle over most of America. Have we become that numb and disinterested in mass murder in America? How sad!    

How Dim Is Our Future       

04 Tuesday Jul 2023

Posted by in Climate Change

≈ Leave a comment

        How does mankind prepare for the effects of climate change? The seas are already rising causing flooding during high tides and storms. This is occurring with a few inches rise. By 2100 a conservative expectation is over a foot with six feet being possible. In a couple of centuries the world’s glaciers may have melted causing the seas to rise more than two hundred feet. This rise would flood the world’s coastal cities and many of the interior ones like Washington D.C., London, New Orleans, Houston, Paris, Cairo, and many others. How does a city prepare? Do what New Orleans has tried to do and build not just 20 foot dikes but over 200 foot ones, encircling the cities? Miami has zoned for the streets to be raised over 10 feet so ground floors will become basements.    

            The past few years has seen mega-droughts and extreme temperatures along the Pacific and Southwest states. Even Alaska has had triple digit temperatures, melting permafrost.

            The changing climate is causing extremely heavy rains and flooding in great swaths of America. Atmospheric rivers are dumping a foot or two of rain and many feet of snow inland from the Pacific Coast and in Europe. One violent storm after another has been and will continue to hit Texas, the Southeast, and the Mid Atlantic States. Europe and Asia are also being hit by these events. The Gulf Coast was known for category one and two hurricanes but now the Atlantic and Gulf are much warmer making the three and four category storms common. Warm oceans mean heavier rain from storms using ocean air.

            As the world’s population continues to grow, more land will be used for housing and with the oceans rising causing cities to be abandoned land formerly used for agriculture will be used for housing. We have eight billion people with another five by 2100. Where will the food, land, and water come from for all those people?

            The world’s political leadership needs to be united in their efforts to reduce the increase in the warming gases and the effects of the damage to the existing environment. Today’s leaders are working on that vision but many people are trying to claim that it isn’t happening and climate change is another hoax just so they can become leaders of their countries. These people’s followers are anti science which means they vote for people who cater to those voters and disbelieving zealots. If those people take power in their countries they will try to stop reduction efforts.

            A concerted effort of all countries is necessary or mankind’s future is dim.

More Ron DeSantis Goofs

28 Wednesday Jun 2023

Posted by in Ron DeSantis

≈ Leave a comment

        Ever wonder how Ron DeSantis got elected Florida’s Governor the first time, much less the second time? Is Florida so lacking in intelligent Republicans that they have to put forward a fop whose only trait is his appearance? He is a very good politician because he can say and do the rudest, crudest, offensive, and illegal things causing people to like him. His behavior is patterned after former President Donald Trump, who in recent polls shows he has about a third as much support as Trump.        

            DeSantis’ latest boondoggle is his immigration policy. He says he would invade Mexico to stop the Cartels from sending drugs across the border. That is a war with Mexico! Florida is the transit point for drugs along the East Coast corridor. If he stopped Florida from being the supply depot then the Coast Guard could increase its work in Texas and California.

            He says he would end birthright citizenship which would require a huge change in legal precedents and maybe even a racist Constitutional Amendment. As usual, he has no idea what is involved in what he proposes but it might make sense to some unintelligent people.

            Another of his proposals is to build a physical wall like Trump did in most places where nobody crossed. Trump’s twenty foot high wall required a twenty-two foot high ladder as stationary cameras showed. The better equipped smugglers used a cutting torch to cut a big hole in the wall.

            The best immigration policy would be more border agents and immigration courts. Of course we could give them work permits so they can do the jobs in fields, orchards, lawn care, and slaughter houses American laborers won’t do so they can go back home each year.

Inflation Caused By

26 Monday Jun 2023

Posted by in Coronavirus, Inflation

≈ Leave a comment

        I am tired of hearing people complain about Biden and the Democrats causing inflation. How are they responsible for the inflation in the rest of the World? Some of other countries have over 100%? A few are over 200%. Biden’s policies had nothing to do with their problems. Our inflation rate was among the lowest before the Federal Reserve started raising rates.

            Many countries have run high inflation rates for years because of their own problems. The inflation rate problems for the top twenty nations minus China and Russia are because of the Pandemic. The World’s entire economic system was upset by the Pandemic and its side effects. Most of the world’s manufacturing, transportation, exploiting mineral reserves, and purchasing by manufacturers and consumers was reduced or stopped. When the Pandemic was ebbing purchasing exploded and the costs of available materials, transportation, and sales prices rose. Much of that has gone down but the rise in interest rates replaced the cost reductions. Most commodities are lower priced than pre-Pandemic prices. 

            A side effect of the Pandemic is millions of Americans didn’t go back to work. We had a shortage before but afterwards employers were left with a choice of raise salaries or try to keep production going with fewer employees. Competition for workers raised prices.

            We were already short of housing and the Pandemic cut into construction. Short supply and increased demand raised rates for new, existing, and rentals. Higher interest rates made prices increase.

            The Federal Reserve will take credit for lowering inflation but they caused much of it and are keeping it from falling as the original reasons return to normal.          

Letter to the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce

13 Tuesday Jun 2023

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

        My first time in San Antonio was when the Alamo was enclosed in a case of scaffolding. We stayed in the historic hotel across the street. We had requested and got a room on the Alamo side. We took the river cruise during that Christmas vacation so the banks were completely lit. We bought some items in the Mexican mall. We toured the old missions and dined the local restaurants. It was an enjoyable part of our two week road trip.

            Our second visit was not enjoyable at all. The Alamo had been turned into a botanical park destroying the feel of the site. Several of the people I conversed with while waiting to be herded around thought a bulldozer should be used to put the Alamo back to its historic importance. A neighbor just returned from San Antonio’s visit to see some friends. They went to the Alamo to see the flowers and park; but not the purpose of the object of the memorial.

            When we stayed in the hotel the second time it must have been close to our first room. The Gaudily lit carriages at night enhanced the recreational touristy feel of what should have been a feeling of a heroic but misguided historic event. We have made our views felt to many others who have made their visits to Texas avoiding a San Antonio stay.

            Incidentally, the traffic in the area was the worst I have ever driven in including rush hour in other major cities.  Perhaps turning the surrounding streets vehicle-less would help. I would also suggest turning the Alamo into a historical monument with several re-enactments each year and tearing out the floral garden and the herding system with lines. I missed seeing any respect!