Gene's Footnotes

I have never been impressed by the messenger and always inspect the message, which I now understand is not the norm. People prefer to filter out discordant information. As such, I am frequently confronted with, "Where did you hear that...." Well, here you go. If you want an email version, send me an email.

November 28, 2012

Signs for those who are ooking


Las Vegas homes are likely the cheapest in history if you adjust for square footage. (Homes have doubled in size in the last 50 years.) The Las Vegas Sun reported the median price paid for a house in January was $109,000, out of 3,800 homes sold last month.





So, why are we in New York State?

A quick note from an article in the National Post (Canada).  One of the remote towns has seen the hospital become "the" place to eat.  Good food at very attractive prices. 

The restaurant in town cannot compete with the hospital.

If you step back and think about this scenario, you will see a perfect example of what happens when government contorts the economy with its happy talk. The federal government susidizes the hospital cafeteria and is destroying the restaurant in town run by a guy who is  paying taxes to destroy himself.

November 27, 2012

Tyranny: 11/28/12 [Do as I say....]


FBI Claims Copying Data is Not Stealing


Ironic defense provides irony to Megaupload case.

Web2Carz Managing Editor
Published: June 9th, 2012


  
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The government’s case against file-hosting giant Megaupload just keeps getting weirder. Earlier this week Megaupload petitioned a federal court to dismiss the government’s case, and now they are claiming that the FBI illegally copied data from Kim Dotcom’s computer in New Zealand. And the FBI’s response is puzzlingly ironic: Since the files the FBI copied are digital, not physical, it can’t be considered theft.
That’s a fascinating argument, considering the entire case against Megaupload is based on the supposedly “illegal” copying of digital files. So if it’s not illegal for the FBI to copy digital files, then nothing Megaupload did could be illegal either.
“The first [copies] were sent without the New Zealand Police having any say in it whatsoever. If [they] went offshore without the consent of the Attorney General, it was an illegal act,” said Dotcom’s lawyer, William Akel.
New Zealand authorities seized 18 servers from Dotcom, but the FBI only had storage capacity enough to copy two of them.
The U.S. government is trying to get New Zealand to extradite Dotcom so that he can stand trial for multiple copyright counts. 


I face this double standard every day. Governmenet drones are above the law of the commoner.

People have been trained to accept Big Brother. Ever notice police part their civilian cars wherever they like?  Haven't noticed? Just stand outside a police station and see how cars are parked, 

I can guarantee the FBI will not see any irony and the Court will rubber stamp whatever the government wants. Logic has been murdered long ago.

Day by day, you become a cypher.

The proper beating of your wife

The correct way to beat your wife, as Muslim experts explain, is not with a toothpick, as there is no pain and not as you would beat an animal or child, you know back and forth across the face.

No, you should cause some pain but do not make her ugly.




November 12, 2012

Drifting into focus

Hello, as you can tell I am distracted and probably winding down this blog in favor of eating.

In the cage match between oligarch/statist vs. Marxist/statist and their battle to try to get voters to go to the polls, the Marxist got more to the polls, though, what was it, ten million less than last election. Not even worth looking up.  So, as we wait for the President to sign a treaty to restrict gun ownership in circumvention of the Constitutional rights you used to have, the next of dozens of changes, consider an old friendly topic:


Inverse hockey stick – Hurricane Sandy cools the ocean
Posted on  by  
The Impact of Sandy on Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies Along Its TrackGuest post by Bob Tisdale 
We’ve established in recent posts that, based on linear trends, the sea surface temperature anomalies along Sandy’s storm track haven’t risen in 70+ years and that there was nothing unusual about the sea surface temperature anomalies there during October 2012. And we’ve established and discussed for years that there is no anthropogenic global warming component in the warming of global sea surface temperatures or ocean heat content.
Yet activist websites continue to post climate change alarmist nonsense in Sandy’s wake. See examples herehere and here. And they call themselves realists. They must think Salvador Dali’s paintings were realistic. Refer to the discussion of Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. MOMA notes that “Dalí painted this work…he said, ‘to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.’” I read that and instantly thought of Joe Romm at ClimateProgress and John Cook at SkepticalScience. 
I’m tired of responding to their drivel, so this is an informative post....
The rest is here.  You may enjoy reading the science before the establishment tells us about global whatever it is today.

For fun:


Of course, we will hear global warming of sea temperature caused the storm: this is the storm that was superficially covered since it preceded the election.  Remember, in the spirit of "Bush did it," that FEMA took several days to get troops on the ground in the face of a governor who barred them and an idiot mayor.  Long Island and Jersey have suffered catastrophinc losses and are on their own. FEMA is a joke - regarding its stated mission.  But, new Amerika speak will not address the catastrophe. The people on the ground, though, are getting a lesson.

A few days ago in Queens, a national guard helicopter landed and had wtater, but the people were not permitted to drink any, it was for government workers. 

This may well be a profound wake up call to those whose political insticts are infantile, my ex-fellow New Yorkers.

November 07, 2012

Bye, Bye Miss American Pie

I know I owe you part two of Casey's article on how we are governed by sociopaths, at all levels, even our schools, but I am not really motivated about yelling about the leak in the dike, anymore. There comes a time when the leaks become pending structural failure and the stupidity, incompetence, or malevolence of the construction crew is no longer the issue.

That time has passed.

My friend Bob sent me a five minute talk by an accountant demonstrating the integral fault in the dike and its inevitable failure. Please watch. The presentation is not painful accounting, just sad. The point of it was to make sure you vote for number-savvy representatives. To do that, we needed a few million more people who are grown ups. To get to that point, we need a financial collapse. After that, people will pay attention to what they have and what the government, whatever form it will be, will take from them.

The failure is coming, now, and there is no stopping or stalling it, the two choices this past election. It can be triggered tomorrow or next year, but all it needs is a catalyst.

That's all I have to say.

Either understand what what will happen soon and prepare (and prosper) or ignore it and watch TV until the electricity is turned off.  Nature has an objective way to cull the weak.

=========================

Just some observations:

In simple numbers: if the entire government shut down, we can not reach a balanced budget.  All the talk of millionaires and billionaires and cutting waste is poor distraction that works because the audience is stupid. The audience will only accept what it believes.

Now, some may argue we could gain new revenue, the Leftist idea of economics, by using our newly tapped oil and gas, but this government of sociopaths thinks we should not have energy, just bankrupt companies to make believe they can use wind and sun to lead us to nirvana, where our last gasps will be rewarded by clean air. Also, I should mention we want to close coal mines and give the miners two years of unemployment.

I repeat what I said years ago, what I explained to Rep. Gibson at a meeting: the current administration is intentionally destroying us from within. He "refused" to accept that, though his colleagues at the Hoover Institute held that belief. It is obvious when one entertains the revolutionary mind set of the administration.  There is no solace in being correct and only sadness that the obvious is rarely seen when it is offensive.  The obvious is such only to those who are willing to see.

I learned recently the flavor of the term "cognitive dissonance." It is exactly what I have defined in philosophical terms, only people seem comforted by "science." There is a neurological basis for what is observable. Essentially, when the experience one faces is dramatically contradictory to the template one "believes," then, as cognitive dissonance has it, one merely ignores it. It is not there.


When "Robbie" the robot was told to shoot a weapon at a man in the movie Forbidden Planet, his electronic brain sparked and short-circuited. His creator had programmed him to never harm a human and so the conflicting ideas paralyzed him. 
Human beings often are presented with opposing thoughts also, but our brains have developed a way of resolving these conflicts through a process call cognitive dissonance....


Indians walking around the bay where Columbus first landed did not see the vessels. They were not able to; they had no expectation or experience. After days, I believe, a medicine man finally saw the boats. Perhaps, being a medicine man opens up one's ability to see.

Cognitive dissonance explains my frequent confusion when presenting facts or assumptions to someone about a serious matter, often politics, and all I get in return is a stare, grimace, or story that Bush did it. There is no recognition of the experience I offered. People are not being overt liars, a common supposition, they just cannot stop their brains from shuffling reality to fit its template.  My presentation of the notion is:

C = XV

This is supposed to look like math in order to trick people, but the concept is C, comfort level, is a factor of eXperience and eVents. Dissonance indicates not only a negative C, but a mental shut down in face of experience that disproves one's religious, if you will, expectation. I merely indicated that one would turn to drugs, booze, etc. to avoid the pain; I had not realized people just generate an amnesia. Makes sense in retrospect.0  Probably, people who are smart, or think they are, have a strong ego so they do not crack under the pain of the dissonance; rather, they shut down the perception and blame Bush.

It is painfully obvious that our president is mentally ill, but the nature of it is found here. He is a classic narcissist, but that is only a description  of personality. Cognitive dissonance fills out the illness. Last week, when he finished as speech saying he never leaves people behind, he may just well believe that.

Nothing you and I can do, anymore, except to secede from the union. It is over, as we knew it, so pull out on all fronts, disappear as best you can, and become a "prepper." If you can, use the system, get your social security before it is slashed, get a fixed mortgage and convert the money into silver'; the best plan is to crash the entire structure that is being used to imprison us by using it. For Gods sake, get out of the major banks. Buy anything, but do not be looking at a paper chair when the music stops.