Freedom means many things to many people. One of the supposed freedoms we are born with is to exist in nature. This is not a right bestowed by Government or God, but is part of what and who we are. One of the greatest crimes against humanity is the pursuit of profits to line the pockets of the wealthy with scant regard for natural consequences.

Governments pursue economic advantage in order to be considered popular but ministers are not all powerful. Political systems that “evolve” seem more advantageous than ones which overturn established systems however when that evolution is corrupt, when it is masks the democratic interests (of the many) to bestow advantages upon the few, an aristocracy exists. Conservative politicians seek to align the efforts of the many (tax payers) to support rational goals – to reduce national debt – to benefit the actions of corporations who provide much employment to the citizens. Liberal politicians seek to balance the actions of corporations so that the population realises value for their contributions. Socialists seek to claim this wealth back.

When things go out of balance, then injustice occurs. Revolutions too often install a new system of corruption at the top that takes over the levers of power but the needs of the few being placed above the society they serve all too often take precedence over principals. Hence few revolutions result in governments that are considered “saintly” by the West. One example of a successful revolution is that of India, led by one man who sought not power, but social justice, Gandhi. One example of a corrupt revolution, that replaced one ruling class with another is Zimbabwe. The French and American revolutions were based around fundamental principles of liberty and equality even though these principals took hundreds of years to be reflected in peoples’ lives and it remains an on going project, there is still an ongoing aspiration.

The dissolution of the British Empire created the free nations of the Commonwealth and although Great Britain appears now diminished, it is an evolved Empire – one that has had its children. The deeds of the 20th century undid centuries of domination asserted by military superiority. In that way, one could view that revolution as socially progressive.

Except that international finance driven in large part by the migration of population and the need/opportunity to employ them and the economic systems of measurement have resulted in conglomeration, the growth of a world class of corporatisation commonly called “globalisation” against which there is considerable popular protest. Why?

When you consider that the profits of these huge corporatations may avoid taxation then a level of fairness is denied to the population. When you also consider that they are responsible for much of the pollution the world is starting to confront, then you begin to assess the costs above unfair taxation as criminality.

The economic troubles the world is facing are due to corporate irresponsibility. Seeking wealth for the very sake of being competitively powerful does not benefit anyone but cements a super class into an unassailable position and that is the instinct that our laws seek to moderate.

This article in theGuardian UK supports what Disturbing Trends has been saying for years: it is the cost free pollution that is seen as beneficial (provision of jobs) that distort economic systems – that provide an economic rationality to putting political systems in place that allow the rape of society (GW Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Sarah Palin) with no regard for the environment which the majority of us live in. This movement that seeks to discredit climate science is as real a threat as is the terrible expansion of human population in much of Asia and the corporate structure that both feeds it and takes advantage of it.

Humanity needs to reassess what it is doing. Polluting in the name of profit kills people. To herald it as rational is simply false.

When a flaw in the protective shield (that makes airflight possible without holding your breath) exposed American flights a new kind of designer suicide bomber with a concealed and undetectable chemistry set to be set off by an “emergency injection”, the media in the UK highlighted how detailed scanners would fail to show such kit, but would expose peoples’ genitals to the security police. Making people the “apparent victims” because they are viewed as a parade of pornographic images is what the prurient minds of a few are most concerned about? Is that their response?

I avoided international travel for eight years not so much for a fear of terrorists, but the sense that being intimately searched at every border under the watchful eye of machine gun toting security could result in a mistake. But now, that the bullet has been bit and I have travelled to the UK, I find that the real response of this Government is far less intrusive or threatening than when I travelled before 9/11.

If one’s naughty bits are exposed in a virtual lineup parading past the border, then so be it. Security is not infallible, but so long as the scanning of human bodies is not harmful, then it should be employed. Discreet methods to make things harder for the wannabe terrorist are better than being pointlessly delayed and questioned or blown up.

In other words, it a response. President Obama decided that it is not acceptable to rely upon failure and passengers to tackle security and has taken an immediate action by ordering air marshals on all flights into America. And now he has ordered security reviews and responded in such a fashion that it is obvious that he intends to disrupt the threat to public safety that increasingly sophisticated attacks may bring. Thinking ahead of the plotters is the trick and when a politician takes responsibility for solving the previously unsolvable, the public is rightfully reassured to get on with business as usual.

The unacceptable risk of being exposed to acts of war carried out upon the innocent by people who can only be perceived as totally insane or brainwashed far exceeds any fear that security police may view the bodies of the public in a virtual invasive search does provide a better rationale that will have a side effect of reducing the ability of idiots to stuff their bodies with condom wrapped drug contraband as well.

So long as there are no adverse effects, it is not a threat to freedom. And when a politician takes responsibility, there is hope of real progress. Terrorism is a serious wound, triage involves stemming blood loss, while the antibiotics take more time to be effective.

Let us hope that the Obama responsibility extends to winning the war by reducing the motivators that allow insanity to prevail. Terrorism is a terrible sickness that has befallen some of the most committed idiots who’s goals can not be realised because the forces that will act against them are not only far stronger, smarter and increasingly evolving (also), but it now has a leadership that understands responsibility.

The “economic crisis” and the “war in Afghanistan” are both threats to the US economy. What is the “US Economy” to the new world that has discovered greed is not exclusively an American sin?

Any society that is not driven by a common economic goal is going to flounder, economically. And one that pursues capitalism or communism too successfully will suffer after success. In this TED talk, Geoff Mulgan talks about the need for capitalism to adopt caring in the new world.

Where capitalism benefits risk takers, communism fosters creativity.

If a society does not take risks with creativity continuously, then relevant winners are not found. Hence the success of capitalism. Democracy serves us by proving change. It is not the cheapest way to determine when it is time for change, but it is indicative of common will.

Whether it is optimal is another question and one best left unexplored. When the Government starts to plan change of government, inevitably human nature steps in and someone gets addicted to dominating everyone else.

But the service of democracy is to favour the other side of the equation. Concentrate on improving the health and education of the people comprising the country, and then make them cycle downhill as fast as they can with more skill. Then prepare for the next hill.

Democracy has a problem. It reacts to history, rather than what is needed. The making of history is the way it is because we turn it into a duality (which is why fair systems, e.g. proportional representation, is so unpopular with the politicians). A duality means winning half the time. If there were five major parties, proposing not just red and blue, but green, white and yellow as well – there comes a point where the “popular mandate” becomes meaningless.

We worship the wrong god. Democracy is not what makes politics work, it is what makes despotism fail.

The “will of the people” is a popular choice, and is usually not the correct choice. It is therefore little more than fiction. Lots of people flock to see terrible movies. It does not improve the inherent value of the art.

Popularism as political muscle is dangerous. The best leaders are not self aggrandizing super humans. Their political views are well formed and with them they can see the (totally right/utterly wrong) approach and from debate, the Government could work out which rhetoric fits the circumstances and overrule the other. Why crossing the floor is such a crime in FPP (first past the post) non-proportional electorates is that a government is defined as a continuous right to control power. Is that the best way?

Probably a non-partisan senate, where candidates are promoted to office (i.e. sponsored) by parties, but need not remain loyal to the party on every vote.

A more elastic form of party politics could mean that governments evolve with the best people from both sides but decisions are weighed for their actual effect rather than each side trying to beat the other with rhetoric.

A more representative and responsive democracy needs to evolve. The constant polling and referendums of the broad population does not produce better answers, just commonly held opinions.

We are smart enough to cause all these problems, we are smart enough to solve them and create more complex ones.

Check this countdown timer for when the atmosphere has 1,000,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon in it – which is approximately past the threshold when the atmosphere will go above 2 degrees average and the real climatic instability proceeds with potentially disasterous consequences predicted.

Cont/-

For example droughts/flooding ratios would become more extreme than they are. The world will continue to change and evolve until it goes over a certain point where the food chain starts to collapse and then that’s it for a few million years before life crawls back out of the rocks.

Most climate change deniers will be long dead before things get really nasty. It is the lack of responsibility for the people of the future that seems to be contrary to purposes of nations, of our species and of our world.

There will come a point where economic growth will become impossible, so why not take the reigns of it now and make energy non-carbon producing and sustainable? Why is this so hard? Because the oil companies will not own it and they are funding governments through the tax dollar?

If there is any danger that future generations will suffer, then we must understand the science. Listening to one entrapeneur (the guy that started the weather channel) talk about his complete disbelief in climate change is spooky. But when you realise that he is being paid to say what he is saying, his conviction is nothing less than hollow. His evidence is irrelevant – merely things her heard someone say was good enough science to him. He is no qualified sceptic.

And to counter this (apparently) right-wing claim that climate change is merely a scam: prove it. It is your responsibility to prove that your pollution is harmless before it destroys everything. Got it?

There is plenty of evidence that pollution causes death. There is plenty of evidence that the atmosphere is being unnaturally loaded with our pollutants and we have no right under God or Nature to so abuse our environment just so some balance sheet looks nice.

There is plenty to say that we destroyed careful balances nature had established since the last great extinction of 80% of all live on earth. It is possible that a natural catastrophie will get us first before climate change makes modern life impossible.

Modern man has only been around for a fraction of the planet’s natural history. Let’s not let go of that which nature has taken so long to organise before giving us the minds with which to briefly appreciate it, turn it into art and then systematically destroy it. Our representations of nature will be all we have to remember it by.

Army chief warns of prospect of failure in Afghanistan.

When the chief of the army starts a claim for more pay with dire warnings of losing a war in Afghanistan it takes away some edge from the argument he is making. Losing in Afghanistan is a worse result than underpaid soldiers, certainly.

He says that Vice-President Joe Biden’s plan to spend more on covert missions than direct military engagement would never work. How killing lots of people with firefights in their own towns is going to win support also seems far-fetched. One can imagine:

“Why are you here?”
“We have come to protect your village from the Taleban.”
“Then why did you kill my brother?”
“He is Taleban.”
“Is he? So what, what did he do to you?”
“He ran away.”

The war with the Taleban is being fought because Osama Bin Laden was not handed over, and since then it has morphed into a war against the Taleban for being what they are. And that seems a just war as they are such bastards.

They tore down Buddhist statues. They make women wear clothes that completely conceal their identity. They enforce Sharia Law. They do not allow liberalism, they are authoritarian, they promote the opium harvest. How many of these would they be doing anyway if they had handed over Osama Bin Laden? All of them. If Bush had not gone to war with the Taleban back in 2002 (this war is now longer than WW2 but thankfully less destructive so far), the Taleban would still be in power in Afghanistan and opium would still be flooding Europe.

That Al Qaeda is in Pakistan and Iraq as well as Afghanistan – the sworn enemy of both the West and Iran, it certainly makes sense for America, Russia and Iran to join forces and consider offering the Taleban an offer of peace if they reform the opium trade and agree to elections. It would seem in the mutual interests of all those nations to break the back of the Taleban before they acquire means, however the assumption is that it is “not possible to negotiate with terrorists”. Apart from the Buddhah statues, the Taleban are not specifically terrorists. They harboured a man who directed an act of war against America and The West and then refused to cooperate with international justice.

If America had joined the ICC and charged the Taleban with criminal involvement with the Opium trade long before 9/11 as it was known and provable by the CIA, would that have been a more effective course of action?

Who knows. We can not do anything except what we can do now. And losing in Afghanistan is not dissimilar to losing in Vietnam. Except that Vietnam was an ideological battle, whereas this is a battle for justice, albeit one where the scales are terribly overbalanced in favour of nobody.

There are no winners in this war. It is entirely negative. Kill them or wait for the next attack is the driving logic. Inventing ways to kill them and drumming up support because of what the West does to itself in full view of its critics, letting financial bubbles explode.

But at least the West has them. The Western idea is that making mistakes is essential to explore all aspects of life, that a liberal science exploration and separation of church and state has led to progress. But military progress is not necessarily what will “win a war”. For a start, there is a “just cause” to remove the Taleban, but only after 9/11 was it a legal cause.

GW Bush went to war without gaining enough support and then really blew it by training his big guns on Iraq prematurely. If he had waited for Afghanistan to be won (who know, it could have taken 20 years) before marching into and turning Iraq into a quagmire it was not beforehand, he would not have toppled the American economy into the red to such a degree.

In other words if the fight in Afghanistan is not a) purposeful or b) legitimate – then is fighting the correct strategy?

One tends to agree with Biden about taking out the leaders of an essentially criminal gang with drones, and stopping Al Qaeda from taking hold in Pakistan these are both important goals to fully achieve. How is that a cause that can be “lost”? Is the NATO police action that has lasted 8 years so far in fact a military occupation with a specific goal?

Perhaps it should have been that all along. It feels like the intelligence community had too much wrong on this one, and that the military incursion into Afghanistan was not well planned. But who knows? Intelligence is not shared with the world, for good reasons.

A Tsunami struck Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga on Thursday morning after a major earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale, 18km deep, 190km from Samoa and Tongan islands, close enough that warning systems had but 6 minutes to alert people sleeping in beach hut Fali to run for the hills. Many survived by sheer dint of how fast they could escape the beach. 170 people were lost to the sea.

Civil Defense in New Zealand has been criticized for their slow reaction not advising people quickly or loudly enough perhaps that disaster was on its way, even though in the final analysis, they were right to err on the side of calm. Northern beaches were given a strong swell and a boats may have suffered damage, but the consequences in New Zealand were extremely mild and the focus on it soon faded as the realisation crept into that day that whole villages in Samoa (Auckland is the largest city for Samoan residence) had been wiped out. A news report of a mother losing all three of her children right before her eyes to the tides fury became the headlines. By evening the sense of unreality was still dreadful. A feeling of incredible sadness infuses this side of the world for the loss of life from paradise.

On the other side of the same fault line, 10,000 kms distant, earthquake ravaged Sumatra faced a far more deadly series of shocks. Maybe 1100 have died, being buried by collapsing buildings, only to suffer another huge earthquake.

The official death toll stands at 715, although one U.N. estimate said more than 1,100 may have perished. Officials said that thousands were still not yet accounted for.

Speculation that these events were related were dismissed as unlikely.

Every so often the right wing driven media come up with a new way for the terrorists to destroy America. Of course real doomsayers are so obsessed with the 2012 fear of the end of the world and wonder if it will do better at the box office than James Cameron’s Avatar, we hope not. One is the turgid dream of a truly grand artist who spends years crafting this new thing we are told, and the other is this well crafted set of special effects with a story best ignored, usually, firmly set in the soap opera mould. Both look fun.

The real paranoia comes about when they suggest something that the “terrorists” may never have considered otherwise. It may seem comparably just a fashion statement to detonate your stolen atomic bomb off in Manhattan (for a terrorist, not for anyone else) when viewed through the Hollywood creation of end-times as a physical manifestation is perhaps harsher on the nerves of today than big blue lumbering magical creatures may seem. It depends on their writers making the highly unlikely seem real.

Conversely, the danger of the actual live scenario outlined on USA Today is truly apocalyptic. If the terrorists did not drop the bomb into Manhatten but shot it into space, they could cripple the USA communication, command and military.

Terrorists are not the target of this article. It is pointing out how Iran has rockets going into the atmosphere, putting things into orbit and now are planning on a nuclear capability (even if not to make a bomb), that instead of defending upon a unclear and not present danger (The former Soviet Union), they should find a way of defending their national grid while making friends with those who mutually can assure destruction.

Or is the USA merely announcing that it has this capability aimed at space above other cities?

Sunspot activity is a cycle that cycles about every 11 years. Sunspots are indicative of increased cosmic radiation and since 2000 (the last peak) has been steadily declining. It is now at the low point in the cycle, and from now, for the next 11 years it will increase.

Link to interactive graph at SpaceWeather.com

This is normal, nothing to get excited about, except that sunspot activity increases may affect both climate change and it is also possible that with the world now far more reliable on microwave communications, cell phones, etc. that we will experience increasing interference. Since the cell phone revolution’s real growth has occurred in the past 10 years, if cosmic radiation becomes a factor, it could spell times when communications are disrupted. Business reliance on text messaging and other infrastructure issues are not going to cause a disaster, but may be more expensive to tax payers ultimately.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard appear to be a super-structure possibly running the Government after the last election/coup. Authoritarian governments that lack democracy are generally a threat to World Peace. They become unpopular as they seek to spread their message that enslavement of the people of a once great country is power.

Once they have sorted out and made the people of Iran comply with their needs, they will seek others to control. Such is the problem with Authoritarian Government by the Military. It is a good excuse to get the CIA infiltrating it, or perhaps that is what happened at this 130,000 headed army is the result.

Military dictatorships are not a particularly new arrangement, nor is it necessarily a danger yet. Will it become one? Will Ahmadejimibad turn into a great dictator who directs this supra government to invade other countries once they have grown their new found nuclear teeth? Somehow it seems a tad unlikely, unless Iraq was the goal.

To claim theological grounds for nuclear arms always seemed a tad uncomfortable, but an industrial military complex, much more their thing. Invading and domination, rigging elections, all those ways to defeat the will of the people seem to fit better with the black leather gloved iron fist than the white robes and soft beards of senescent sages.

See also:
NY Times

Furthermore, Iran authorities now seek to gain censorship of what the public and read and write on the internet by requiring all ISPs to hold records for three months of every keystroke of every Iran citizen. Total control of what citizens think is a power that only a fanatic would claim.

Al Jazeera

In a move universally seen as ridiculous, Sarah Palin resigns as Governer of Alaska. Not during the good times does she hand it over to a well groomed successor, no epic battle, no scars, no situation. Just givin’ up is all.

She was elected to office somehow by someone, and so instead of doing that, she runs for President and now she plays her final ace and resigns as Governor of a State, united with the other 49 that make up America. Like 1/50th of the responsibility of the Office of President. She appears unable to cope during this terrifying financial abyss. She would rather undermine and parry with President Barack Obama than let the Republicans form a credible opposition she sees her self as the Rightful Owner of the Republican ticket. They could do so much better.

God help them if she suceeds. President Barack Obama vs Sarah Palin the Governer that quit?

For her to win, President Obama is going to have to do something very wrong. So, if the situation is still dire who is going to vote for her when she ran from Alaska? Thus far he has done fairly well without having to consult with and poll his children for important decisions. The man respects his well earned responsibility.

See Vodkapundit for a more Right-Wing view. The question is not whether Sarah Palin grand strategy is going to work or not, but if anyone can vote for a “quitter”?

I certainly do not think they will. I agree. Stupid stupid stupid.