The Horsemen of the Apcalypse, famine, drought, mass extinction and war

Climate change is really big.  It is so big that if we look at all of it at once we will want to hide because it is so fucking scary.  Correction, so FUCKING SCARY.

Sea level rise

Melting of all the glaciers

Drought

Increased storm intensity

Ocean Acidity

Mass extinction

Global War

Yup melting all the glaciers will cause the oceans to rise.  No alpine glaciers will cause droughts in the lands fed by rivers sourced by glaciers.  Droughts in these areas will cause global food shortages and then lead to mass migration and then Global War.

Some areas will receive less rain than they are used to.  These ares will suffer droughts and crop failures, which leads to mass migration and then Global War.

Some areas will receive greater rainfall than normal, but the bad news is more of that rainfall will occur in single events that cause massive flooding and erosion of soil.  This will lead to crop failure, which leads to mass migration which leads to Global War.

Habitat loss due to drought and increased farming by humans will, correction, IS wiping out more and more species of life, often before we know that they exist.  They will be dead and we will be alive so this does not lead to Global War.  Unless you think of the oceans.  Increased ocean temperatures are ruining fish habitats and reducing the number of fish species.  Removal of fish species will reduce the amount of food from the sea.  Causing starvation and mass migration and Global War.

Increased Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is stored in the water.  CO2 stored in water makes carbonic acid.  Acidity of oceans increase, habitat losses in oceans causes starvation, which leads to mass migration and Global War.  But if the acidification of the oceans goes too far, all war will stop.  Half the worlds supply of oxygen comes from acid sensitive organisms in the oceans.  Death of these creatures reduces global oxygen from 21% in the air to 11%. All mammals and most recent reptiles need 14% oxygen to live, not birds and not alligator like reptiles and not fish and not insects.  Humans are mammals, so all Global War stops and people all die.

If we stop using Carbon Dioxide soon the last one will not happen.  All the rest will continue, because there are positive feed backs in the environment that will  not be put in check for thousands of years even if we try.  That is something that we are going to have to get used to.

For further clarification, mass migration of people from areas of low food to areas of high food will still occur.  And people with food will not want to share, because they will not have enough food for everyone.  Then people with nothing to lose will start killing people that have everything to lose.  They will do it everywhere.  The winners in the poor countries will then go to the wealthy countries and everyone will be at war.

Global War.  WWI and WWII were called Word Wars but they weren't. WWI was a European war that added trading partners and colonies.  WWII was fought in Europe and eastern Asia.  There were no battles fought in the Americas, in South Asia (beyond a skirmish to two), most of Africa, and most of central Asia.  No Latin American nation even participated, the same with most of Africa really.  If the worst happens, the GLOBAL WAR brought on by climate change will be fought in every street across the entire globe with machetes to nuclear weapons.  All for food and a place to stay.

What a downer.  There is a way to stop it.  Embrace Green Energy.  Global Green Energy can power desalination plants and pump water to where it is needed.  This would allow crop irrigation and stop the worst of the famine.  Hydroponic greenhouses would add to global food reserves.  And reduce Global Mass Migration.  Reduce that and Global War becomes less of a threat.

But severe weather, droughts, no glaciers, sea level rise and mass extinction, is not something that we can avoid.  They were futures that we could have avoided, but they will be a fact of our future no matter what now.

Embrace the green to stay alive.

Here is another clip:

part two:

Climate change an wind power

I was watching YouTube videos about Eta Carinae, a star expected to go supernovae any time:

Then I saw a link in the side area that I had to check out:

Then I went to another promising link:

And then I got sidetracked by wind turbines:

and then:

Astronomy, Climate Change, and Wind Power, Oh My feed my Asperger's mind.

There is a connection though, between the last two subject matters, climate change is making the winds stronger so if there is a silver lining in Climate Change, it is that.

oh this is the first post ever on my laptop.  this blog space is very apple unfriendly; I could not get the links to work on my iPad!!

Dark blue again

It seems there is no winning in my life. There is only losing.  There is no such thing as something good.  The best I can hope for is mediocrity.  Good friends, yes, but that is it.  When people want me they need something, and when they get it they are gone.  

If I am not right there for someone, then they go and get it from someone else.  I wish that my suicide attempt was successful.

Things happen to me and I go from zero to wishing I was dead.  I have to find away to get out of this spiral.  But I can't see how.  Everything hurts me.  

Seventh needed me on Christmas, but I was in cellphone no mans land with a cellphone that was dying.  Now she does not want to talk to me.  She went out and got laid to try to forget.  If I was there for her it would not have happened.  Because I love her and respect from the top of her head to her toes.

This was not the first time that I have not been there for someone.  Every time that it happens I am with family.  It makes me wish that I had offended my family and stayed home

I can't cry.  I can't go out.  I can't do anything.  I can't even kill myself. 

I don't see worth in anything I do or I have done.  There is no value in my life.

I want to die

The end or the start?

Christmas time again and laid off as usual.  I have e reading bug and the itch to write, but I have also a strong depression on the way that threatens to turn my ambition into velleity.  Come with that I have been obsessive towards sex as well, even by my standards add MPTR has suggested that she wants a good poke.  My resistance is low, but there is a real fear that this will end poorly; not with me heartbroken again but dead.  So I have been throwing a lot of shit at the wall hoping that something will stick.  

Thank fully there are books, the one thing that distracts me a little from sex.

Read Terry Pratchett's new book, Dodger.  It is not of the Diskworld series, which I was looking forward to, but another Earth based fantasy, this time in Early Victorian London, I time I know little of but a fascinating time none-the-less.  Dodger is a Tosher, someone that makes their living scouring sewers of London for loose change when he hears a woman being beaten by thugs and comes to her rescue and into the intrigue of the aristocracy of the time.  Will he marry the German Princess he rescued?

Then it was into more London fantasy with Ben Aaronovitch's Moon over Soho and the third in the series that I read so fast and hard that I can't remember reading the title.  Five stars each.  Basically a cop turned Apprentice Wizard investigating crime with an unnatural bent.  Gods, wizards, goblins and more mixed with a history of London that you pick up by osmosis whether you like it or not.  After reading Dodger, I was surprised that they tied in so closely.

 

If I was smart I would have read China Meiville's Un Lum Dum next which also parallels the London underground too, but Peter v Brett was practically screaming at me to find out what next is going to happen to the Characters of The Warded Man, in, Desert Spear.   How I marvel that he let me look at one of the villains of the first book and even got me cheering for him a bit.  I am barely a quarter of the way through though and I am already reading and time is passing me by

I had wanted to start a big writing project this winter.  I was thinking of posting it here for people to read as I write it, if I can get the sex out of me and get down to writing.  Really it is a drain.  I hope MPTR leaves me out of it.  She won't and I have been getting desperate, for any type of love.  She will be the end of me.

Gender problem

MagicEyes tried her damnedest to impress upon me the he ideas and the things that she thought important.  One of which was gender.  Lots of people are tackling this issue now days, so I guess it only apt that I fell into orbit around her and was challenged to alter my views.  Well I have and I will try to articulate my own ideas.

There is only two sexes, male and female identified by their reproductive role and/or their sex chromosomes.  There are other sexes, but they are variations on the those two, like hermaphrodites and such, but effectively only two.  

Gender, however, is not the same as sex.  While sex is arguably specific, gender is a spectrum, a range between two points, Heterosexual and Homosexual.  Gender is two aspects, both of them also spectrums, self identification and sexual preference.  

Self Identification: is how a person feels about themselves as to their own true sex.  There are some interesting sex differences between the social stigma of the sexes on this point.  Masculine females suffer minor derision from within the majority of the sex, called tomboys because they prefer to things society views as male.  But it is feminine males that suffer the most censure.  A girl that is interested in football growing up has some casche value and can move between the male and female spheres of influence, but not so for males who have interest in feminine ideals.  A boy who wishes to play with dolls or even play girl's games is openning themselves up to bullying and genuine beatings.  Society's message is that it is acceptable, but not encouraged, for a girl and later a woman to prefer a male lifestyle; the range of epitaphs range from "cool" to "butch" and rarely "dyke". For boys and later men, society's message is almost always negative, skipping the positive and neutral tags, to jump right into the homosexual slurs.

And this is why men are all fucked up.  Women, their self identification is an acceptable spectrum, but for men only being male is acceptable; if a man cannot stick to the one point and fits more on the spectrum he is made to feel female.  Men fit on a scrum too.  I am self identified as firmly on the spectrum.  I like some things male and some things female, according to my society.  Truth be known, I think I am mostly female identified.

The other spectrum is Sexual Preference: basically which sex do you prefer to be with sexually.  Luckily in Canada, this is not as big as it used to be and it is certainly better than many counties.  The range is between of preference is between preferring men sexually and preferring women sexually.  Most people are heterosexual, of either sex and more males are homosexual than women but more women are bisexual than men.  Men tend to be polar, again, while women are also more of a spectrum.  I am in touch with myself; I know I am on a spectrum.  I am heterosexual, but some men interest me, but they are rare.

There is another spectrum, but it does not enter into gender; it is Sexual-ness. The spectrum is between asexuality and sexual.  It is a spectrum having to do with 'how often' they want sex, and men are typically on the often side but all people tend to be towards the center.

The problem with Gender comes mostly from Men, because they are socialized to be polarized and not on a spectrum.  Men who feel feminine in some way self identified, feel not Male, as being a man is a whole bunch of things, but all in extreme.  A man who is not an extreme example of maleness can be made to felt as female.  And there is nothing wrong with this.  But if you cannot accept being a spectrum, you can stop feeling like a man.  A man can identify as a female and still like women.  The way that many people feel that they can resolve this conflict of Manhood, is to switch their sex.  I think this is fine, but only if they feel they must, and specifically can't accept that they are on a spectrum.  But I would hope that they are at least homosexual or bisexual, because another thing I have learned from MagicEyes, is that nothing ruffles homosexual women like a man that alters his sex and becomes a lesbian.  it feels like they changed their sex to be a lesbian.  But someone like me, a feminine male who likes women strongly, would still be a feminine person who likes women, even if I changed my sex; I would have to be a lesbian.

You see sex and gender is not actually linked; they are seperate aspects of people.  It is just assumed to be linked and for men strongly linked, but just because our culture tells us convincingly that gender and sex are interchangeable does not make it so.

Rick Mercer rocks

It Takes $$$ to Make $$$

The sad truth of the matter is that the American Dream is dead.  The American dream was that anyone who was born there or migrated could stand upon the shores penniless and by the time they died they could be wealthy.  Maybe not the wealthiest individual around, but well enough off to be thought of as wealthy.

Today, that can not ever happen.  If you are penniless in America, you can not afford to get an education.  If you are penniless you can not start a business.  If you are penniless, when you die, you will not be much more.  And unfortunately this holds true for every Western Industrialized country as well.  The sad truth is that if you do not start with a little bit of wealth, you will not die with wealth.  That said if you are born with a lot of wealth you may very well die with none, but it is not likely.  If you have wealth, you will go to the best schools and get the best tutors and very likely never be hungry ever.

And there is a chance that if you have a little bit of wealth, you can make it grow into a lot of wealth.  After all you can not make a fortune in the stock market unless you have a little money to invest.  And most of all, you can have a million ideas that you could make your fortune on, but if you do not have the starting capital you will never realize your dream and you will never make a dime.

So, I know that my dreams will for always be unforfilled, but luckily my dreams do not have me making money, even though they would make money, that is not my drive.  So, since my drive is to see them made real and to see people profitting from them I should share.

One dream is to supply the isolated regions of the world with food so that they do not have to import it.  Importing food is expensive: the food costs a lot more to moved a long distance basic food stuffs can cost many times what they cost where there are lots of people, importing food costs a lot of green house gasses, many places have to fly perishable foods in and flying uses a lot of fuel as does driving hundreds to thousands of kilometers.  It is costly for the health of the people, good food costs a lot but imperishable junkfood costs less and increases health concerns.

So my idea is to set up hydroponic greenhouses in distant locations.  Particular locations would be the Northern portions of Canada.  The test locations would not be as profitable as the ideal locations but because of what is involved it is better to use areas that have more people nearby.  Good locations would be Edmonton Alberta and the area, Northern Ontario like Thunder Bay or Kapuskasing, Central Quebec like Val d'Or or Chibougamou and Labrador.

It would entail building a greenhouse, well insulated for the winters with ready access to power for lights.  All those locations would not have a shortage of power, but the trick is to tap into deep geothermal heat.  The geothermal heat has two purposes, the primary purpose would be to heat the greenhouses in the winter and cool the greenhouses in the summertime, if it is needed.  The second use would be to provide cheaper heat for the community.  The geothermal wells would have to be in the neighbourhood of 1000m deep as the isothermal gradient of the earth is typically 2.5°C per 100m. Twice that depth would be better to reduce the cost of hot water in the community but the largest expense of the operation is boring the wells.

The true locations would be further a field, in more extreme locations like Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Inuvik, and other locations like northern Alaska, Iceland and other remote locations where food must be expensively transported.  Away from a continuous reliable power source, wind and solar power would have to fill the gap, generation of the light need not been continuous, but wind generation is usually greater at night and in winter.  Additionally wind is generally greater where there are no trees.

Cheaper more reliable food that is less expensive for the people, but can still get a good profit.  Supplying heat in colder climates would also generate profit and lower greenhouse emissions. Growing food would not be a carbon sink, but not transporting the food would and depending on if there are carbon taxes or carbon trading arrangements, this type of enterprise would be a good benefit.

If you are building infrastructure to build a greenhouse and heating it with geothermally heated water it would cost next to nothing to add a fish farm.  Locked off from possible contamination to local waterways, heated water to optimal temperatures, fed with additional food from the greenhouse, the fish can provide a source of cheap protein for locals who do not have a local source.  Ideally a vegetarian Carp species would be best, they prefer warmer temperatures, and are naturally vegetarian and so would suffer less on that diet.  The fish would also fertilize the plants and additional natural fertilizers can be acquired from the community.

The real problem is the start up funds and that is why I will never be rich.  Of course, it might be a crappy idea too.

Burning coal

So I had this thought this morning whilst showering.  I try to make them short because they consume so much energy.  Think about it.  To heat one liter of water 1°C it takes over 4000 Joules of energy, most water starts off at about 5°C and most water in showers is over 45°C, so that is 160,000 Joules per liter and most showers use more than one liter of water, much more really. 

So here is my thought, I have just used millions of joules of energy to heat water to have a shower and the water has just gone down the drain.  What if the water went somewhere else, like in the winter it went into the floor and radiated the heat into the house.  After or instead of it went into pipes beneath the sidewalk and the driveway and the heat was used to melt the snow and ice.  To prevent freezing of the pipes it could store the hot water in a bath and have the pipes enter the bath filled with an antifreeze liquid.

My point is we use energy to heat water for one purpose and then throw it away.  We might as well have power plants burning coal producing just smoke and hot air.

What if the hot water was used to pre-warm the water to be heated for the shower or the dishes or the wash.  Sounds sensible, eh!

GMOphobia phallacy

Lately people have been jumping up and down on GMOs, Genetically Modified Organisms.  Most people do not know what they are and the ones that are sure they know what they are, are wrong.  A few cases of GMOs have had some serious side effects like the modified corn plant that is immune to a common herbicide, so the farmer could grow the corn and use the herbicide at the same time to control the weeds.  Sounded good until some weeds became immune to the herbicide as well.  The weeds now compete with the corn and the herbicide does not work on them.

Another study released this summer proudly showed pictures of rats raised on GMO corn that were riddled with tumors and cancer seeming to prove that the GMO corn was dangerous to our health, but there was a problem.  The researchers did not tell the whole story.  They did not tell the public that they used rats that are used in Cancer research.  The rats were modified to be very susceptible to cancer so scientists could test cancer treatments.  The unethical researchers also did not tell the public that the control rats fed on normal corn had more cancer than the rats fed on the GMO corn.  The corn in question was modified so that they had a toxin that was lethal to insects.  The theory of the flawed research was that the toxin would be toxic to mammals too, but the toxin is inert in mammals but there is a similar toxin that is toxic to mammals, but not present in the corn.

Other famous GMO was the grain that had grasshopper DNA to allow it to be more frost resistant.  I imagine that people thought the wheat would taste like grasshopper, or that the plants would have wiggling insect legs.  The modification just allowed the plant to produce a protein that allowed the plant to survive a light frost and extend the growing season for the crop.  

The other thing is that humans have a very long history of genetic modification of our plants and animals.  The original corn had a cob smaller than your finger and grows only in Mexico, the native peoples took that plant and selected plants that had bigger cobs and over thousands of years we got the corn crop that we have today, wheat, apples, oranges, cows, carrots which were originally not orange, have all been modified over the years.  Granted the modification took years to become set, but they were all modified.

Canada has a history of modifying crops.  Our northern climate is bad for many crops, late and early frosts limit the growing season.  Wheat was modified to open the western prairies to immigration in the early part of the twentieth century.  The researchers combined the three best choices together to produce the first wheat for the northern prairies.  It has three times the DNA of a normal wheat plant, but it helped open the west for people and later modifications allowed wheat to grow and feed the world.

That we have been given the ability to do a thousand years of breeding in a few years by opening the genome and placing the desired genes directly into plant genome makes people fear them, but it is not inherently bad.

Direct genetic modification of our foods could do great things for us.  When I grew up I used to eat peanut butter sandwiches, but because a small portion of the children in society are allergic to peanuts, peanut butter has been banned.  However, if the offending protein is removed from the peanut and the other places it exists, children all over will be allowed to eat more peanut butter sandwiches in schools.  All food allergies can be done away with.

Alternatively, nutrient poor foods could be modified to increase the nutrition of the foods.  GMOs could bring about the end of hunger and malnutrition.  Plants could be modified to need less water, drought resistant plants.  They could be modified in a hundred different ways to do a hundred different things that could help people live and survive.

People who are against GMOs need to think about what they are really afraid of and take a long look at what the GMO does before they are against just because it exists.  People against GMOs would be against meat produced in a vat that no animal had to die for.

Food Banks

So the price of food is going up, and this is a good thing for a few reasons.  One, it tells people that Climate Change is real and has a real effect on your lives.  Two, people should pay more for their food, because higher quality food is better for you, but unfortunately quality is not increasing.  Higher prices means, hopefully higher wages for farmers.  Higher prices also will mean more people will be looking into growing their own food, also good for your diet.

The problem is, that e quality of the food is not increasing.  Also, higher prices means more people will not be able to afford food and more people will be going to food banks.  Food banks for anyone who does not know, is a place where you can go to get free food, when you can't afford to eat.  When I was young, they did not exist.  About twenty years ago, someone saw a need and created the first one, as a temporary measure.  Now as statistics say, four hundred thousand people go to Food Banks in Ontario every month.  Higher prices mean this will increase. A lot, and generosity is not keeping pace.

I have a solution.  In Smallville, there are three grocery stores, and they are not affiliated with each other.  In Big Smoke, grocery stores are often affiliated with each other in chains, two but usually three links: high end, low end and discount.  The perishable food starts in the high end and moves done the links as the food gets closer to the expiry dates.  In the last link, the food goes into the dumpster.  Most dumpster food is not bad but looks bad and unpleasant.  Some of the food has in fact expired.  But expired food does not necessarily mean it is spoiled.

So here is my idea, it would work in small towns and big cities.  Take the ugly food and the expired food, but not spoiled food, get them before they enter the dumpster and make meals out of them and freeze them or preserve them and donate them to food banks.  If there are no volunteers to supply the workforce to do this then the prepared food can be sold at cost and provide low wage employment.

Problems: the grocery stores are insured for their losses, so the insurance companies need to be contacted to do this.  Walmart, buys food on consignment and does not pay for food that does not sell, so the original food provider needs to be contacted and their insurance provider.  So there is a lot of legal and insurance lines that need to be investigated.

Of course, making food banks an institution of the past would occlude the need of this plan and would not that be a great thing?

The Current

I have been listening to podcasts of a radio show these past few week.  The Radio Show of choice this last few days has been The Current, which is on the CBC.  It is a more in depth look at the events in to world and the country.  It is very well researched and the people they speak to on the issues are well versed and balanced, facts and gender.  Which is to say they have a mandate to interview female experts for the questions of the day, if they exist and balanced in facts, but not to the point of stupidity.  

Many people think balanced means that you need give equal time for both sides of a controversy. This is not true and could be potentially dangerous.  As an example Climate Change.  Ninety-nine percent of scientists believe it is happening, one percent do not, but people listening to "balanced" reporting believe it is closer to fifty fifty, because every scientist interviewed has another interviewed from the other side.  Balanced reporting of climate change means interviewing one hundred scientists of whom only one disagrees from the rest.  

The quantity and quality of interviews is also great, the show lasts for ninety minutes five days a week with usually about six stories a day and two to three people interviewed per story. 

I do have one problem with it; a lot of the stories are tough to listen to.  But almost every story is thought provoking and informative.  This is what good radio should do, teach you something and knock you out of complacency.  

The thing is if everyone knows about the bad shit that is happening in the world and if people voice that it is bad and our Governments know that we do not want that stuff happening, perhaps they will enact measures to stop them from happening again.

An example.  In the nineteen nineties in Rwanda, the ruling tribe attacked and slaughtered the majority tribe, murdering nearly a million people in a week.  The UN observers were shocked and surprised and did not know what to do, I say this because I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.  And the entire world was shocked and everyone vowed that they would never let it happen again.

Forward to 2009 in Sri Lanka, government forces in the last days of a 26 year war against the Tamil Tigers refuses to allow a cease-fire to allow civilians to flee the area and presses the attack.  The UN workers and observers in the area are pulled out for their safety and when they return, the war is over.  But there were allegations that captured rebels were executed and depending on the reports up to 240,000 civilians were also killed.  All civilians who surrendered were interred into camps and tortured to find out if they were rebels.  Many who were released felt persecuted and fled the country as refugees.  Many of these people did get refugee status in this country, but some did not, those deported were reinterred and tortured again, but my country is still sending them back.  You see the refugees got here a year ago, but the report of the genocide was not released by the UN until last month and then it was not publicized.  

I did not here about this on the news, but on The Current an interview with one of the UN observers and his observations and guilt.

Makes you think and it is not comforting.  It makes me think about the horrible things happening in Syria and that we are doing nothing to stop it.

Please Peace, Please

One of the great things about being a Canadian is that we are allowed to criticize our government, rather currently we are allowed to criticize our government.  I am not sure how long we will have that right.  Today my government against the United Nations motion to recognize Palestine.  I disagree.

The history of the Jews is long and colourful, starting from a split from the Mesopotamian culture long ago to the creation of one of the longest enduring religions and culture of the world.  

Modern History had the Jews under constant persecution by all the worlds nations: all of Europe's nations, Canada and the United States.  There was a boat load of Jews fleeing persecution from Pre-War Nazi Germany, they went to England, they went to Canada, they went to America and no-one would let them land.  Only one country welcomed those Jews, Germany; it had a plan of where to put them.  There were rumours of what was happening in Germany during the war, but nothing solid.  When the invasion came, the world was shocked with what they found and every nation realized that they were wrong. 

There was a plan to create a homeland for the Jews, so that they could govern their own fate, their ancestral home was selected, they had lost it nearly two thousand years before when the Roman empire removed them to quell their rebellions.  But there were people living their already, the Palestinians.  The Palestinians had no relation to the ancient people of Palestine, whom the Jews removed to create Israel twenty-five hundred years previously, but it looked like history was repeating itself.  

Choosing a new homeland for a displaced people in a world full of people was the last act of the colonial Europeans in the area. And millions of persecuted Jews moved over a short time to the new Israel.   But the people who lived there did not want them there.  Jerusalem was the third most holy city of Islam, it was the Second most holy city of Christianity and it was the only holy city of the Jews, a holy Mosque was on the same site of the holy temple of the Jews.  And that part of Jerusalem was not part of the original land grant to the Jews. 

The trouble is, at this point, is that my view of the situation has been coloured by personal experiences, but I did some quick research to amend that.  Israel took in Jews from every mid-eastern country and their property was confiscated and then they attacked, three wars in twenty years and they survived.  And they gained territory.  They beat off their aggressors.  And then they attacked and they got a second nation to sign a treaty with them.  Jordan was the first in the first years of the wars and the second was Egypt.  Then the Middle-East backed off, because the worst state secret was let out of Israel, they had The Bomb.  

The problem is that they, as a nation, are cocky and they feel that it is alright to inflict on others what had been inflicted on them.  And that is the problem, because as any child knows, two wrongs do not make a right.

You see, I worked in a school in Big Smoke, it was in a Jewish section of the city.  It was a wealthy part of the town, which was bad, because the other kids grew up believing that all Jews are rich, like the stereotype.  One of the things that some organizations do is they fund young Jewish children to go to the Holy Land, via the concentration camps.  I strongly believe that knowing your history is a very important thing, but the glorification of that history, to give their children the feeling of justification for doing bad things is, well it makes them as bad as the people that did the bad things to them.

When the Nazis did the most repugnant and detestable things to the Jews, the Roma, Gays and everyone else that they did them to them to, they sold a chance to the Jews.  They were the bastard sons and daughters of Europe, peria of the continent, but the horrors of the concentration camps, broke the racism that had been fostered and encouraged for centuries.  But the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel, is, too much.  

No, before anyone starts to think my opinions are one sided, or that I hate the Jews, let me be clear: I think all three sides are wrong and if I could wipe all sides off the Earth, I would.  

The Palestinians have been in refugee camps for sixty years, none of the local Arab states, have offered resettlement, even though they kicked out all the Jews into Israel and took their property.  If they had offered the displaced people a home, this impasse would have been lesser.  If the Palestinians, with the other nations had not turned to terrorism to get their way, the impasse would have been lesser.  If the two sides had come together with peace on their minds, there would have been peace.

If the third side did not exist…. The third side.  If the third side did not exist, which wants the entire Mid-East to implode.  Now I sound like a conspiracist, with a wild theory, probably involving the New World Order, but no, I am not going to do that.  But I did spy on a conversation between two Facebook friends, who are no longer friends.  The Religious Right is very interested in the Middle East, that is the location that is mentioned as one of the signs of the Apocalypse and they, the chosen ones, want it to come about sooner.  Believe me, every time there there is new war in the region, they have to change their underwear.

Now Israel, is in a tough position as Iran draws near to the completion of their Atomic Bomb program.  When this happens, what will come of them and us.  Will they be able to forge peace.  I hope so.  I hope there will be peace.

But back to my original statement.  The Israeli government has consistently been ignoring the Palestinians and building concentration camp like walls around them.  One way to signal their government that they are on the wrong track and need to rethink their policies, to get back to the peace negotiation table, is to recognize the Palestinians in the United Nations.  So I disagree with my government's vote against Palestine, I disagree a lot more with my government than I agree with it, but who wouldn't; they are not far from being Fascists.

Real Steel a Reel Steal

I have been a bit tardy posting.  I have been writing, but I have not been finishing.  Today I watched TV.  I have been house sitting for a friend and they have the horrid creation.  I don't normally watch, mostly because I know myself, and I would get obsessive compulsive again with TV.  When I got it out of my system through years of working nights followed by working evenings, I discovered that it no longer had a hook in me: the shows were predictable, they were stupid, excessively violent, based on a premise that I was not invested in, because I had not been watching it and it meant I could read more.  

But then I watched a movie called Real Steel.  Would never have watched it in the theaters.  I would have said that it was a kids movie, or that it was excessively violent (funny that there is such a pairing).  It was robot boxing and that is like cool, I mean the most violent sport.  But the story was not about boxing with robots, it was about cheering for the underdog and a father realizing that his son, whom he has never showed an interest in, was the most important person in his life, if he would only let himself realize that.  Best movie that I have seen in a little while.  In many ways better than 007.  It was because I love rooting for the little guy and Hollywood knows how to play its audiences. I was sucked in with the robots.  Boxing Robots!!

Commercials have changed a lot since I stopped watching, they are mostly animated, they did not used to be this way, and when I mean animated; I actually mean that computer alteration in almost every ad.  I am such a goof for not watching.  Wait, I am not going to miss TV when this is done, I REALLY dislike the length of the commercials, and they way they are trying to talk to me.  I guess all the years of listening to skeptical podcast have had an affect on my Bullshit detectors.