Every day I feel the continual creep of advertisers and marketers into my personal space. Every thing you watch, read, listen to or shop for has a blizzard of advertising and commercials associated with it. And I find the commercials increasingly more and more disgusting. There suddenly are no bounds as to what advertisers are willing to expose us to. Television is out of control. Every disgusting or embarassing subject has now officially been advertised. And not only are the commercials increasingly more disgusting and embarrassing, but the amount of commercials in a given hour on television seems to have gone up. I should not have to pay to watch commercials about rectal or bladder rash. I believe some things should be discussed privately, but nowadays anything is open. I was sitting down at dinner the other day at 6pm and two commercials came on right in the middle of my dinner… one was about rectal/bladder rash and the other was about diahrea. UNBELIEVABLE… I am eating dinner you fucking jack ass marketing goons. I don’t want to hear about disgusthing stuff like diahrea while I am eating. And what burns my ass is that I have to pay Comcast a small fortune to give them access to my home to advertise everything from prostate pills to catheters to adult diapers to stool softners to incontenence to leaks to constipation to every female product or ED pill. I find absolutely nothing of any value in the commercials I must endure… and even the commercials that are not disgusting are insultingly stupid. All kinds of phony financial experts, doctors, phone scams, automobile hype… it’s just pathetic how stupid the advertisers must think the public is in the US. And the radio is no different… endless make believe stories about silly useless products. And then the mailbox is stuffed full of bullshit advertisements about how great this product or that product is… we all know most products have become nothing more than commodities. The marketers come up with crazy harebrained pricing scheme to confuse the public into thinking they are getting a better deal when in reality most products boil down to the same cost. Comcast and Disk and Direct TV are out there annoying you with this crazy special and that crazy insane package. Each has chicanery involved as the pricing is only good for so long or you get trapped in endless automatic renewals. And then the damn pharmacies and groceries want you to carry their absurd rewards card so they can badger you later was they dissect your purchasing patterns. Every way I turn I am being barragged with companies wanting to sell me stuff I don’t want or need. It’s insane… leave me the fuck alone. I don’t want what you are selling. Oh sure, I sound like an old hermit like individual, but I would ask you to take note of the constant drum beat of advertising you are exposed to each day. It’s maddening and I am sick and tired of it. It’s seems to me that this commercialization of everything from adult diaper rash to dingle berries is out of control and is part of a much larger issue of privacy. In the news these days there is story after story about the IRS and other government agencies acquiring information about all of us for supposedly national security. Examining the confluence of groups wanting to acquire information about us, you start to get the idea we no longer have any privacy whatsoever. Google singlehandedly has made sure somewhere in the bowels of some companies offices there are servers with information about you that you probably don’t want public. Couple that with the government’s desire and marketer’s desire to extract information about every bodily function or activity you undertake each day and suddenly your sense of privacy completely vaporizes. We no longer own our own lives. Everything we do is in some fashion compiled into video or data that tracks your life practically on a real-time basis. Meanwhile we all merrily go about our lives thinking we are the masters of our destiny. Baloney… total baloney. Between the government controlling your activities and marketers influencing your habits, we no longer are masters of anything. We are slowly becoming almost android like. We rely on Google to answer all our questions, we allow the government to confiscate our wealth and we let marketers shape our activities. And what’s alarming to me is that with the Internet, and email, forevermore you are on the “grid” and getting off the “grid” is nearly impossible if you have spent 1 hour on the Internet or sent a single email. And this race between those who want privacy and those who want to steal your privacy is accelerating at an accelerating pace. Do rotary phones still work if connected to the labyrinth of copper and fiber criss crossing every inch of this Country, if so those phones provided a level of privacy that does not exist in the digital world. No caller ID on a rotary phone… and back in the day cable was commercial free. Those days were primitive, but at least you had the option of tuning out advertising about erectile dysfunction…. hell we probably didn’t have ED back then. All these commercials seem to have caused people to imagine things that match whatever symptoms the drug or salve cures and presto we all need adult diapers and ass rash balm. God help us…
Category Archives: Blog
The Fusion of Computers and Human Intelligence
To answer this one needs to understand what role they play today. Suffice to say computer technology plays a role in nearly every aspect of our lives. Without computer technology our current lifestyle would be impossible.
In the United States computer technology has become the fundamental building block of society whether we like it or not. But I am more interested In the direct connection between computers and humans. It has been argued the search engines have become an extension to our brains.
Today it is simply unnecessary to store vast quantities of knowledge in our heads, instead we need to be able to criticality analyze the data and knowledge search engine provide. This may seem incidental but it actually is profound.
Google has given humans exponential growth in access to information thus freeing the human mind for higher order or level thinking. Imagine a nanotechnology computer wired into ones brain whereby Google searches could be done with only the need for a Internet access point. To me even this… while profound is only a modest step towards integrating the human brain with technology.
The implications of just the 2 concepts I mentioned likely will have monumental impact on the human brain and may lead to evolutionary changes in our brains. Imagine a 5 year old possessing the equivalent of the library of Congress on a miniature hard drive implanted in his brain. How would the child brain adapt? Ponder my question and I think you will quickly see just how profoundly different our lives might become
My Position on Issues of the Day
After 50 years, and advanced degrees in business and geology, I think that qualifies me to speak out on things I see happening in the United States… that if left unchecked can destroy a great nation. Here is a brief summary of my issues.
1.) I strongly am against “cap and trade”… is there anyone in our government who studies the past or are these people prone to repeat the mistakes of the past due to shear arrogance and stupidity. I am a past Enron employee and we tried to develop a market trading emissions. It sounds good… and lots of uninformed people, like President Obama like to paint this as a panacea, but they are dead wrong. Enron spent millions developing a trading platform and functioned as a market maker trying to get emission trading to become a liquid and viable way of controlling pollution. It failed miserably… there was no liquidity, i.e. no counterparties willing to take the risk on the opposite of the transaction. So Obama comes in 18 years later and thinks he knows how to create a new market for trading emissions. Say what you want, Enron did have the smartest people in the room, but even they couldn’t figure out how to deal with the lack of liquidity and the logistic of trading one region with another.
2. I am opposed to national healthcare. The government has failed every time they have tried to develop innovative programs. Take Social Security… it has become nothing more than a monstrous PONZI scheme. Not to mention where are all the medical personnel suddenly in 2014 appear on the scene to handle as Obama claims is 30 million people. Even a 5 year old could figure this one… it aint gonna happen.
3.) I am opposed in the most vehement way the crushing debt bomb Obama has created in less than 2 years. Again a 5 year old could figure out, you can’t spend money you don’t have.
4.) I am opposed to any increase in taxes… federal, state, county, local… all of these taxing bodies are living beyond their means and need to cut taxes while cutting spending.
6.) I oppose any increase in spending for education… to the contrary I would cut spending and give the extra money to families. The problem is not the teachers, its the kids. They are coming to school each day with no interest in learning. Why? They see little value in an education in large population of the big cities. Education is a waste of their time and it shows in their demeanor, and lack of respect for nearly any institution of the United States. So stop spending more money, and start giving families the money to allow them to spend time with their children mentoring them and helping them see the benefits of education. Teachers for the most part are nothing more than people with knowledge to impart to their students. But if the student is not listening, more money is not going to change that.
7.) I oppose stimulus monies. Obama has adopted the keynesian approach to dealing with economic downturns. In Keynes theory, in times of downturn, the government would step in and create jobs in the hope of jump starting the economy… one little detail that our uneducated President has failed to understand is that Keynes entire theory presumed the goverment possessed a surplus of monies they had saved for a “rainy day”… gues what we are broke, and Keynsian strategies backfire without the surplus. Instead of stimulating the economy, you only increase the debt which ultimately will lead to higher interest rates and inflation. Another perfect example of our pathetic leaders not even understanding economic principles. I sincerely wonder how much Obama and the Congress really understand about the complexity of running the worlds largest economy. Management of our economy is not for the weak of heart and mind.
8.) I oppose any form of amnesty for illegals and would deport all illegals unless their are legitimate moral or ethical reason to allow them to stay. These illegals are stealing jobs from Americans… and any simpleton who claims American’s won’t work at these jobs, has their head up their ass.
9.) I strongly support term limits for Congress and recalling of our governor if the governor unable to perform their duties due to any substantive reason. At the federal level, nothing could straighten out our dysfunctional government more than term limits. I believe this is the issue of the day. We have got to get rid of lifetime Congressmen…they simply cannot do the right thing as they are corrupted by lobbyists. Cut terms, and you’ll suddenly Congress doing the right thing, not the suggestion of their favorite lobbyist. This is the single best way of the citizenry to regain control of our government. 2 terms and you are out…
10.) I support tort reform. This country has graduated so many attorneys that we have attorneys throwing lawsuits up against the wall to see if they can extort money from companies who would rather payoff the plaintiff rather than fight
11.) I oppose earmarks. They are nothing more than a way to show a Congressman’s efforts to grab money for their State at the expense of others. No earmarks should be allowed and Congress needs to look not only at the issues of their constituents, but the greater good for the Country.
12.) I was against TARP
13.) I am furiously opposed to the government stepping in and bailing out GM ad Chrysler. Let the free market determine who wins and who loses.
14.) I support wiretapping of known Al-queuda member or sypathysers.
15.) I support confining enemy combatants at Gitmo and I do not believe detainees are entitled to any protections afforded American citizens.
16.) I support drilling for energy anywhere and everywhere.
17.) I am against the novelty feel-good nonsense surrounding solar and wind power. Both require significant subsidies to be competitive and frankly are of no value. Understand something. Electricity companies have a spinning reserve of 10% of their maximum daily demand. What this means is that in sleepy dog days of August when the temperature soars to 100, the utility has enough power to meet the load required plus they have an additonal 10%. The rest of the time, the utility has significant power available but not being used. For example in the winter a utility will use about 40% of their power generation capacity. 60 percent is idled for lack of demand. Solar and wind simply displace fossile fueled power plants, but they do nothing to help on that dog day in August. There’s a funny phenomenon with wind… when its hot there litlte to know wind which means on that dog day, wind can’t be relied upon. Solar can provide power on those dog days, but it’s merely displacing power already available to the utility through ownership of power plants. Given this, I am completely opposed to solar and wind because they do almost nothing to help meet the peak day needs. And both require subsidies to make economic sense.
18.) I am strongly in support of a wall between Meixco and the US. The wall should be virtually inpenetrable. 1 would support a wall that is 10 feet below ground and 20 feet above ground. The wall would have razor wire and would have a camera system to watch activities along the fence. You bleeding heart liberals ask yourself if it more or less humane for the US to build a substantive wall between our country. The wall will stop COLD in its tracks the continuing trickle of illegals. I know… there are those who say walls never stopped anyone. Well news alert, the Israeilis don’t have immigration problems. Sure they have stray rockets hitting their communities, but that is a different issue than keeping people out of the country.
MORE TO COME
Is there any difference between OPEC and modern Unions?
I dare say “not”. OPEC limits the supply of a commodity that is plentiful all around the world, but because they sit on an ocean of oil they hold off the oil to insatiate the every whim whether vile or benovolent of the Sheiks that control the oil. On the other hand Unions hold off the supply of plentiful labor in the same fashion as OPEC and for the same reasons. They would rather see GM go bankrupt than offer a single concession. And with fairness to the UNION, GM didnt do much. But OPEC and UNIONS are designed to limit the surpluses thus driving the costs of labor and commodities upward costing consumers more money. When will we learn?
A world without the United States
Dictators become the primary governmental order… and Big Mac’s are the second order of business. I think we can safely say dictators and Big Macs would become the New World Order without the grace of god this Country has bestowed on the world. Oh but we have done so many many many terrible things in the name of “good intentions”… you know like Russia.
So when you professorial jackasses ponder the big pictures like who wins the next episode of Spiderman, stop for a minute and image a world comprised of dictators and Big Mac’s. Why? Without the United States that’s what we will have. And the Big Mac’s will not be available in Africa except to Somali pirates. Lovely world where freedom rings!!!
Where is the outrage from Muslims around the world?
Muslims must begin to speak out against radical Islamists or they are going to become outcasts among the American public, if not much of the world. One cannot commit the atrocities in the name of religion, as many Muslims have done, and not suffer the wrath of the civilized.
Admittedly, the Old Testament was brutal and in many ways similar to the Quaran’s current literal interpretations. King James over 400 years ago in conjunction with the Church of England, civilized the Old Testament. In its current form, commonly referred to as the King James verion or the New Testament was published officially in the United States in the 1880’s.
From my vantage point, King James understood the extreme positions in the Old Testament were too radical; therefore he softened the text to make it more palatable and more civilized… such as the phrase “turn the other cheeck”.
The Quaran has not been civilized and is at least 400 years behind the commonly used King James version of the Bible. But even more difficult is that the words of the Quaran are alledged to be those of Allah whereas in the Bible, the words are those recalled by apostles, not from God directly.
Clearly, these differences, i.e. lack of civility and source of verbiage, make it difficult to find common ground with Muslims who take literal meaning to the words of the Quaran.
Sadly, the western world will not forever sit idly by and watch Muslims kill innocents. Muslims need to wake up and heed the approaching wratch of the western world. While individuals can kill dozens, the western world can kill millions.