Weather or Not

Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

  • Home
  • About
  • Archives

Powered by Genesis

Archives for 2017

Scattershooting 171220

December 20, 2017 by tornado Leave a Comment

Scattershooting while wondering what happened to honor, courage and integrity as virtues to aspire…

…

STUPID, COMPLICATED, WOEFULLY INSUFFICIENT NEW TAX BILL:
The new tax bill does a few good things (such as repeal the horrid Obamacare mandate), but in sum total, is a massive waste of time and taxpayer money. Now, for me personally, it’s a wash. However, unlike most of the electorate, I don’t vote selfishly on what’s best for me, but on what’s best for the country — and I didn’t support this Rube Goldberg mess of a bill. It falls far, far, far short of true tax reform! Instead it’s a half-baked (or less) kluge that’s bad for the nation: maintains extreme complexity of tax code and returns, is not a flat tax, doesn’t fit onto a postcard, is full or pork, and worst of all, adds to horrendous looming crisis of our national debt. Yes, absolutely and without reservation, I am letting the (nearly) perfect be the enemy of the good. Damn right I am, especially since this isn’t very good at all. I actually have a backbone, and ideals. Too bad our RINOs and faux-libertarians in Congress don’t. Forget the boring, old, hackneyed, outdated, repetitive, “steals from poor to give to wealthy” liberal company line. Go grow up and come up with something interesting and original for once, leftist parrots. You’re even more out-of-touch than the RINOs are.

…

ALABAMA SENATE RACE and ANTIQUATED TWO-PARTY SYSTEM: If I lived in Alabama I would have abstained or written in a third party option for their Senate election to fill a two-year end-of-term. What a wretched choice they had between a creep (and possible criminal) vs. an endorser of infanticide of the unborn and other destructive leftist policy. This (aside from complex tax-code bullcrap noted above) is what the horrendously outdated and Constitutionally unjustifiable two-party system yields — a choice of bad choices. It’s much akin to last November nationwide, when voters largely chose between an imbecilic and immoral faux-conservative buffoon on one side, and a corrupt, cutthroat, immoral neoliberal criminal on the other.

…

A RECENT EXPERIENCE with HOME AWAY CUSTOMER SERVICE: In trying to get overdue information to access a vacation rental, I called customer service for HomeAway, a major company (owned by Expedia) dealing in that sort of thing. My interaction is summarized by the survey results I filled out after completing the third call. The survey questions were worded as if there only were one call, but I had to make three. This is but a sympton of a larger problem with outsourcing and hiring. See this screen capture of my response. Has political correctness gone so far that supposedly English-speaking “customer service” outlets feel they must hire people who are essentially incomprehensible?


…
CHINESE OPPRESSION/TORTURE of ITS OWN — AND NOTHING BEING DONE ABOUT IT: Communist red China is setting the horrid example for other nations to follow in using the domestic-spying technological surveillance state (increasingly including artificial intelligence, AI) as a tool of Orwellian mass authoritarian oppression: elimination of privacy, overt and passive-aggressive censorship, blackmail, torture, imprisonment without trial, and killing, on massive scales, especially of ethnic/religious minorities and any in the 91.5% Han majority who dare challenge authority. Yes, nearly every nation has done this since to some extent since 1950…regardless, scale matters. And as surveillance cameras and AI become more common worldwide, more shall follow. Meanwhile the U.S. and other nations are passively ignoring and sticking heads in sand, as China terrorizes its own people in this manner. Why? For one, don’t think for a minute the domestic deep state — NSA, CIA and FBI power-that-be — and their counterparts elsewhere in Five Eyes, as well as Russia and especially Islamic nations, aren’t envious of this ability to technologically control and manipulate the people. For two, money talks. As of June, China held $1.15 trillion of U.S. debt, plenty enough to demolish the economy, easily, at the whim of instantly calling in said debt — in effect, unspoken blackmail of one nation over another. And we have sat idly by and let them do so…

…

JERUSALEM IS THE RIGHTFUL CAPITAL of JUDEA (ISRAEL)!: Where two sovereign nations agree to put an embassy is nobody else’s business. The U.N. needs to STFU and butt out. The courageous and correct resolution veto sends exactly that message. This veto is absolutely warranted. Every other Council nation is wrong on this. Jerusalem is the rightful capital of the Jewish people, and of Judea/Israel, and has been for thousands of years. I stand by Israel firmly, unequivocally and without apology. This is nonpartisan! Readers of this BLOG know I have been a huge critic of Trump in many ways, but when his administration does do something right, I will support that. Finally obeying the law passed by a bipartisan Congress, and signed in 1992, is simply the right thing to do. Nikki Haley is spot on in her words here, as was Edmund Muskie of the Carter Administration in 1980 under similar circumstances. More details in this link…

…

END of BLOG YEAR: This is my last entry for 2017, much to the relief of leftists and freedom-haters (redundant terms, I realize) everywhere. Regardless, I love even my left-wing friends…it just sometimes has to be tough love. For all: Have a joyous and blessed Christmas and new year!

Filed Under: Scattershooting Tagged With: 2017, AI, Alabama, artificial intelligence, call centers, China, communism, Congress, customer service, domestic spying, Israel, Jerusalem, Judea, oppression, opression, Orwell, Roy Moore, taxes, torture

Bernie Sanders Fans: How to Overcome Socioeconomic Ignorance

December 15, 2017 by tornado Leave a Comment

Bernie Sanders lost in a rigged and patently unfair primary process over a year ago to the neoliberal establishment candidate and paid Goldman Sachs shill, Hillary Clinton. I get that. I agree with that. However, it’s time to grow up and lose the notion that what he had to say substantively was worth the electrons used to broadcast it to your screen.

Bernie-lemming “democratic socialists”: what is your major malfunction? Your very slogan — democratic socialism — is a self-contradictory, oxymoronic, and just plain moronic load of bull cookies.

Equality and fairness are not synonyms! We may be loved equally in God’s eyes, but God did not give us equal genetics, sizes, shapes, interests, intellects, or talents. No matter how hard I try, I cannot play basketball like MJ. MJ was not constructed to lift weights like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold could never be the kind of scientist his fellow German-speaker Einstein was. Einstein wasn’t able to be on Mozart’s musical level…and so forth.

We each, individually, have different individual abilities, purposes and motivations. That’s true diversity! We are not made to benefit equally from economic outcomes, and therefore, we should not.

Socialism innately dissuades both diversity and productive quality. When you force equal outcomes across unequal individuals, by whatever sociopolitical means, you disincentivize productivity because (please read carefully!) human nature is fundamentally both selfish and survivalist. That’s just the cold, brutally honest truth, and you are not going to change that. People want reward for work, and consistent with human nature, that means money to buy what they both need and want. Having things provided for people “for free’ (at someone else’s expense, naturally) only incentivizes dependency. Dependency, in turn, yields sloth.

It’s not your job to decide what someone else should or should not possess — despite the patronizing attitudes of white liberals toward minority “needs”, and despite the fundamental arrogance of the socialist myth that the rich man’s money belongs to others who haven’t earned it. Yes, humans at all levels of the ladder are fundamentally selfish, economically. Anecdotal exceptions of altruism aside, people by in large demand tangible incentive (capital) to produce, to create, to innovate.

Less innovation, less incentive, less progress, less efficiency, slower gains, and loss of personal freedom…is this what you want, you fools? Because if you entrust centralized, federal Big Bureaucracy to mechanisms now done by for-profit business (however imperfect they are now), they will become more imperfect, more inefficient, with bigger overhead, less creative, slower, and more wasteful. Such is the historical, inherent, unavoidable, and inevitable nature of distant and detached central bureaus. If you do not believe this, then for once, study history. Or if in government, join a federal employees’ union, like I have — ironically, being a union member has shown me more than I ever could read in a textbook about the ineptitude, nefariousness and oppressiveness of upper management in a governmental bureaucracy!

There’s a lot more to this than I can give you here, and you need to do most of the lifting and learning yourself. For starters, though, look up and read and watch the related material from two highly regarded economists: late, Nobel-prizewinning economics professor Milton Friedman, and the Jim Crow-era North Carolina/Harlem-raised black economist and writer, Thomas Sowell.

Their expertise and credentials in these issues are much greater than yours, and you need to learn from them. And after doing so, don’t come back to me with the ridiculous and baseless arguments akin to, “That was then, this is now, we are better.” No provable basis exists for that argument. It is a logical and rhetorical recency fallacy, a head-in-sand mentality that ignores precedent and reality, in favor of a nonexistent Utopian dreamland full of unicorns crapping Skittles.

Consider health care and public policy…Bernie vs. Friedman:

And more general discussion on the end game of socialism itself:

In fact, in the last 100 years, the great majority of the tangible economic and efficiency gains in modern society are the result of capitalistic business. Yes, here in the U.S., government research developed many great ideas (lots of basic science and tech research), along with some horrible ones (nuclear war and forms of eugenics) that get ignored by pro-bureaucracy socialists. Private enterprise also developed others (such as Texas Instruments with the transistor…look where that has gone!). But only capitalistic business and its incentive to profit and make jobs took them from the ivory towers and flourescent-lit labs, made them real and mass-producible and tangible and workable, and put them into your hands. Never, ever, ever forget that.

      “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

      “Social injustices are clearly greatest where you have central control.”

      “Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.”

      “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

— Milton Friedman

      “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

      “Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”

      “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”

      “When Senator Sanders cries, ‘The system is rigged!’ no one asks, ‘Just what specifically does that mean?’ or ‘What facts do you have to back that up?’ In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that.”

      “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

— Thomas Sowell

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Bernie Sanders, bureaucracy, capitalism, centralization, democracy, democratic socialism, greed, health care, history, inefficiency, Milton Friedman, overhead, recency fallacy, socialism, Thomas Sowell, waste

On Trust

December 2, 2017 by tornado Leave a Comment

Recent events and discussions with others indicate that I ought to explain something for the sake of helping others to understand. I’ll point to this piece when needed in the future, in order to be time-efficient and avoid redundancy.

Growing up in the inner city, I learned early and almost innately the meaning of “watch your back” — trust must be earned, not just given. Mostly I still think that way. Been there, done that, seen it all…I’ve witnessed too much betrayal, dishonesty and backstabbing, too many mind games and control tactics and manipulation attempts in multiple settings (including being targeted with all of the above in an important past relationship), and it reinforces the notion.

This is not a cynical or bitter existence either. My trust wall is so automatic anymore that I give it little conscious thought. In fact, I live a quite happy life in a great marriage with one of the very few people on Earth whom I ever have had reason to trust completely and unconditionally. She is so genuine and real that I trust her far more than I trust myself (again, simply because I have seen too much). That’s rare, and a blessing.

I also trust my Lord unconditionally and without reservation; after all, God is perfect, all-knowing, and all-caring. He has guided me through many tough situations after thoughtful and deliberate prayer (which does work…best if your expectations aren’t selfish or short-term in nature). What I do not trust is our broken and sinful world, and most people in it. I love my fellow people fundamentally as humans, and have helped and will help strangers in need as I see appropriate situationally. However, strangers’ and acquaintances’ intentions and motivations being largely unknown, and human nature being inherently sinful, trust is another story. Want me to trust you? Well, I used to live in Missouri, so “show me” that you are trustworthy. It can be done and takes three things: time, authenticity and integrity. [Notice I did not say “perfection”, for that is impossible in a human. However, my standards are very high.] Simple, but not easy!

The positive to this level of understanding of people is that I don’t get taken advantage of; I can effortlessly spot a scam or detect shysters, call them out without inhibition, and alert others who are more gullible to prevent their being taken for fools by such people and situations. It serves one quite well in many situations (personal investment, choosing charity, scam avoidance, BS detection, advising friends, etc.). This has prevented a lot of trouble, both for self and others. In those regards I am blessed.

The flip side: Outside of a very few trusted friends and colleagues, people generally are kept at arm’s length or longer, and in specific compartments or ladder levels of trust. This is just who I am. I fully admit this, and you just have to deal with it, if you want my friendship or favor. I am quite secure in my own skin, and don’t need any particular relationship to validate my well-being or self-respect. Therefore: if investing in earning my trust is too much trouble for you: not my problem…see ya! [One other thing you need to know is I am brutally honest, which you can see readily by reading previous BLOG entries going back a decade.]

See, I have to conscientiously, actively force myself to trust, to take risks in people, in any sort of relationship (personal or professional). Again, it’s not cynical or bitter at all…it just is. This is a different perspective of origin than most, but I’m completely at peace with it. If you are too, we’ll get along fine on whatever level of balance we shall reach.

This also ties in with my personal Facebook policy, which is part (but not all) of what motivates this entry. I post personal things there at times, though I am very measured and deliberate about what, and am careful not to reveal too much. My Facebook wall is not a democracy; what happens there is entirely on my terms, and at my discretion. Even still, I only accept “friend” requests from people I already know or who come highly recommended by mutual friends. If I ignore a request, it’s nothing personal against the requester. I just don’t know you well enough…simple as that.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: authenticity, betrayal, friendship, honesty, human nature, integrity, relationships, scam, shyster, trust

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 10
  • Next Page »

Search

Recent Posts

  • Heavy Blow to Scientific Credibility
  • The Fallacy of “Compromise” with Gaslighting Forces of Tyranny
  • American Education: Emulate the Asian Model of Rigor and Effort
  • Gasoline Prices: A Layered Issue
  • Fatherhood

Categories

  • Not weather
  • Photographic Adventures
  • Scattershooting
  • Weather
  • Weather AND Not
@SkyPixWeather

- August 17, 2022, 7:11 am

@Meteodan I’ve seen very similar video of multiple “steam devils” circa 2016 on Kilauea’s fresh/hot lava fields, in light rain and low clouds, shot by a tour guide there. Some of them were tall enough to connect with the low, scuddy cloud bases above, at least briefly.
h J R
@SkyPixWeather

- August 17, 2022, 7:08 am

@SitkaBustClub @shawnahaynie Happy anniversary!
h J R
@SkyPixWeather

- August 17, 2022, 6:58 am

One thing I noticed right off: the lava bombs landing on the outside of the cinder cone take much less time to lose their glow (cool down below incandescence) in these conditions. Not surprising amidst high winds and cold rain!
h J R

Blogroll

  • CanadianTexan
  • Chuck's Chatter
  • Cliff Mass Weather & Climate
  • Digital Photography Review
  • DMN Dallas Cowboys BLOG
  • Dr. Cook's Blog
  • Dr. JimmyC
  • E-journal of Severe Storms Meteorology
  • Eloquent Science
  • Image of the Week
  • Jack's Cam Wall
  • Jim LaDue View
  • Laura Ingraham
  • MADWEATHER
  • Michelle Malkin
  • Photography Attorney
  • Severe Weather Notes
  • SkyPix by Roger Edwards
  • Tornatrix
  • With All My Mind

Meta

  • Log in