SETI Begins at Home

Upon discovery of the second non-fictional Class M planet only 20 light years distant, you would expect the world's RF antennae and receivers to be focused thereon and set to maximum gain and filtering modes. But no, we find the MSM has devoted most of its attention to school kids musing about four headed green monsters and no-fee-paid clips of Star Trek designed less to inform and more to exploit. The big justification used by the gov't to cut funding to Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence seekers has been that the universe is too big and we don't know where to look. That excuse has now been blasted by a disruptor, but is anyone digging beyond the superficial to at least the core question? It eluded me if it happened at all. I would also like to know what the published protocols are should the unfathomable happen. Would the most significant discovery in history be processed, massaged, approved and expunged by Karl and Dick and Condi and Steven before being parsed out to the Vatican for final imprimatur? Has it already happened but is being kept from us? Fourteen years ago, I was watching the inauguration ceremonies "live" with hope for the new Democratic-controlled future. Minutes before the oath is given, there is a meeting between the outgoing and incoming. When Clinton emerged from the secret office near Blair House after getting a "final word of encouragement" from Bushie the dad, he bore a look of ashen catatonia. What if he were told the darkest truth there is; that some of the tabloid trash about aliens controlling our fate from deep underground in New Mexico is true and that the entire world government system is a grand marionette show? He looked for all the world like he had just gotten the word and was reeling. I don't know if the current monkey man pretending to be in charge exhibited any such expression six years ago on the 20th of January. I know I did not watch it "live," and the reruns later did not include that magic moment. But I would wager it either bounced off his rubber cranium like any complex idea would, or he already knew thanks to the well worn inside track he and his family have worked to their advantage and to our peril. I tend toward the former in light of the recent display of political, social, racial and rhythmical accumen he and Laura put on for the cameras at the Malaria conference. If you have not seen the dancing with the Natives clip, find it but prop something soft under your jaw first. If it drops onto something too hard you will need dental work.
If the antennae on the "C planet" as they now call it are pointed back at us, they are doubtless in a standby babysitting mode pending a miraculous awakening from our long slumber. God help all of us if they happened to do their millenial check as the MSM were dutifully looping the executive dance steps onto their megawatt monster transmitters. Any true civilization seeing it would either pull the plug or swing their dish to the opposite corner of the galaxy.
This planet may not be worth what it would now take to save it from itself. Unless some untapped vein of terrestrial intelligence is quickly found from within, this particular episode of StarGate SG One is turning into a total shark jumper for the viewers on the "C planet."

Thurber Spins In Grave

The ultimate Walter Mitty fantasy plays out yet again from an even deeper pit of the dark side. Maybe months or years from now, some universal truth will be distilled and put forth as a cure or social vaccine to prevent re-runs. But until then, we must suffer the fools who in the immediate aftermath stage this revolting sideshow: Politicians cower and eschew gun control as possible path to prevention. Dubya co-opts and exploits. Meta-media manipulates the manifesto and capitalizes. University leaders cry: Not now, can't you see we are grieving? Videogame merchants continue laundering their blood money profits while taking no responsibility for the phantasmagorical digital carnage they deify, promote and encourage.
How much more bad behavior and incompetence by well-paid "professionals" is out there waiting to be put on camera? There is a quasi-entertainment vector in watching everyone connected to Mr Cho defend their inaction while trying to take credit for reaching out to him. The saddest part of this is why he did not go after the really bad people but chose instead the so-called innocents. Like Ted Kaczinski, he had drawn a pretty good bead on the true villains that continue to commit crimes against humanity with impunity and immunity. But again, the rest of us will fail to grasp the core truth both of them were trying to articulate. Thank you Main Stream Media for the great editing job that leaves the interesting parts on the cutting room floor as you tow the party line. And for not telling us how the military-industrial-educational-governmental cartel of secret wealth management is stifling advancement of the species. How it kills millions of innocent people, and operates unchecked. How it lies about its true motives and activities, and vacuums up non-renewable resources with a silent sucking sound. Because Mr Cho was so ill, he could not see these facts clearly enough to frame a sound approach to redress of his grievances. Instead he railed against those driving Mercedes cars who pleasure themselves at will. It should not be hard to connect those dots; and for all we will ever know, he might have done so. But all the substance will be obscured in the self-serving monologues that will continue flowing from the Keystone Kops that chased the wrong ex-boyfriend across Virginia highways for two hours, the school nurse who gruffly sends malingerers packing, the headshrinkers who check off all the diagnostic boxes their lawyers tell them to plus the pathetic parade of surviving teachers and students who will say they had good reason to shun, fear and hate this young man. None of this will be the point. What is the point is that somebody needs to stop the world before it is self-immolated in a frenzy of consumption. But they need to find a more direct, less messy, more coherent, less misguided methodology than emptying handguns into college students.

How Much Faster With Mag Lev?

I'm not talking to god much right now, because he has a lot to answer for. If only I could take credit for composing that sentence; but alas it appeared in Esquire Magazine some time before the world started going as far off the rails as it is now. It bears repeating.
I awoke this morning to NPR doing another of its warm and fuzzy profiles of yet another young life snuffed out in the war. A 20 year old man had written home to his father how sad he was to have come across a dead puppy on a desolate dangerous road outside Baghdad. A month later, the soldier's body was being slipped home under cover of night to the secret base in Delaware that is the weigh station for bomb blast victims. Meanwhile the main stream media can manage only to present the raw number of 57 percent and call it news. It is the fraction of Americans who disapprove of Congress' handling of the war while 64 percent disapprove of the president's decision-making. I would bet the deed to my house that if you dug a little deeper, you would find that most of that 57 percent would pin medals on Congress if it hired a hit man to shoot the entire war-making cabal that lives at the northwest end of Pennsylvania Avenue. But nobody wants to go there; preferring instead to analyze the ramifications of the negotiations being orchestrated for a meeting between dubya and the leaders of Congress. There seems to be some trouble over setting the limits of the talks; whether it will be OK for Harry and Nancy to even bring up the idea of withdrawing troops or setting a timetable with the Great Decider on ending his murderous rampage. Should it be a round or square or oval table?
What we have far more coverage about and apparent interest in are the racist ramblings of a radio talker whose relevance can be measured in milliwatts.
I now cite this final example of how upside down, inside out and hopeless the state of our nation has become. The heir apparent to title of violinist laureate who just happens to be a handsome young man described disappointingly as "straight" put on a stunt in the DC Metro station a couple of months back which is just now coming to light. He dressed himself down to a baseball hat and T shirt, then launched into some of the literature's most challenging and haunting and glittering violin works for the morning commuters. In a couple hours time, he managed to attract something like seven people who put twelve dollars in his donation jar. In the same period, the lotto window sold a thousand losing tickets. The bagel stand sold a half million empty calories. The newsstand sold five stacks of soft porn. Joshua Bell had been talked into this by the Washington Post; everyone was hanging their heads in shame by the time his Stradivarius was safely back in its gun case and the story got ink.
The French may have set the record for the fastest train on rails last week. But we defy new laws of physics every day as we hurtle headlong into oblivion digging a scorched path of torn up earth that careens ever farther off the tracks.

Five Days in April

Ordinariy I enjoy breakfast, but digestion this morning was hampered by Himself Live and in High Definition (where available) on the MSM to take questions and issue pronouncements. I wish there was something good to report about the display. Instead there is only the lingering dismay of having watched a retarded person compete on Jeopardy. Make that a retarded person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And Histrionic Personality Disorder. And Delusions of Grandeur. In response to a question about why he ignores a mountain of facts that this war is going from bad to worse, he stated that he "decided" what the military and political needs were and "decided" to proceed and "decided" to surge and "decided" to pronounce the surge a success. He also joked that the Chief Executive in Iraq is, like himself, having trouble getting his Legislative Branch to do as they are told. As if all Presidents everywhere are entitled to a Divine Right of Despotic Decision-Making. So he has not learned anything from the criticism that would be withering to a person of sensitivity and flexibility. He stays on the same drumbeat; always preceded by a staccato hesitation of hemming and hawing while he gathers wool to weave into a hole-ridden mosaic of muddled nonsense.
Meanwhile, the alternative media continues to predict an attack on Iran. Yes Iran the country by the USA as if a desperate little martinet trying to hold together his nation of islam is just about one too many of them drawing breath and transmitting on Al Jazeera. Latest word is that Good Friday will be D Day or I Day or W Day or however history will remember the start of World War Three years from now. At first, I was worried the hapless Blair and his witless sailors might thwart the Big Plan. But this way, Dubya can disguise the raid as a "rescue mission" and disarm those damn democrats who are on vacation anyway. How many birds would that be killing with one stone? Well, you got your sixteen Brits plus a hundred thousand Iranians on the first wave strike so there you go. And maybe the Syrians will kidnap Nancy and hold her hostage. Talk about dumb luck.
I am at the point where I sincerely and profoundly wish he would mount such a suicidal mission if only to put the thinking world completely over the edge. As in: "OK that's it. We have stood by in silence hoping we could all survive to January 09. But you went too far this time and now you are out." Like the frog in a slowly heating pot of water, we won't jump out because our senses have become so numbed as not to realize our blood is vaporizing. An explosion on the other side of the kitchen might trigger a last gasp synapse to fire with our last ounce of resolve to save ourselves from what will otherwise become like death in quicksand.
We need a new twist on the Rod Serling movie Seven Days in May where the peacenik president was nearly deposed by a cabal of crazed war-mongering generals. The clock is ticking. The tables must be turned.