Through the Eyes of a Daydreamer's Daughter

I know most people want everyone to be for or against climate change whichever those people are espousing. Well, climate change is in fact one of the few constants of this planet. The climate will change whether we want to accept it or not. It is reality. How much impact we can have on the direction of climate change remains to be seen. How much sacrifice we as a species are willing to make to control the direction of climate change remains to be seen. In my experience those who talk the most about the dangers of climate change are the least willing to sacrifice to make a difference. And then there is the question of whether we would do harm or good for the planet if we could manipulate climate to our desires. In fact, it is not clear if we would do harm or good for ourselves as a species if we could manipulate climate to our tastes. We as a species have a track record of creating unintended consequences by our actions. And we as a species are not guaranteed immunity to the law...

War has a heavy hand that bruises everyone it touches no matter how slight and passing the touch. Even those who never experienced more than the Cold War grew up marked by that experience.  " Duck and cover" were words carved into children's hearts across America and perhaps across Russia as well.       In my childhood people built bomb shelters underground in their backyards and openly discussed whether to shoot neighbors who tried to enter their shelters, making no attempt to hide those discussions from their children.       I went to one school that required students in k thru 8 to wear military style dog tags on chains around their necks. We were inspected for those metal tags every morning and those who forgot them were sent home.       We all understood that the tags were intended to identify us if we died in school. My father explained tha...

Went out walking to enjoy the beautiful weather and started talking with a neighbor who is an unemployed Ph.D. research biologist. He was first laid off by big pharma after lengthy employment at the same company and then he worked 2.5 years with a smaller research company that simply closed its doors without warning right after the first of this year. He's also in touch with similarly well-educated friends who are also losing their jobs in this area because companies don't choose to do their research here or are not going to do new research at all... All the politicians talk about Americans not having skills? Why get advanced degrees when it guarantees unemployment? A lot of our other neighbors are experienced tradesmen--electricians and plumbers--and haven't worked in years. If it is such a sin to be more than 57.5 years old, do you think the powers that be plan to open extermination camps for the aging? Or will they just let older Americans die on the curb of starvat...

Everyone asks what everyone else thinks about Wisconsin but nobody really wants to hear anything but an echo of their own opinion--and that's part of the reason that there are no winners in Wisconsin and never could be. What I learned in more than 35 years of software development is that you can't solve a problem until you can produce an accurate and complete definition of what the problem is--once you can define the problem accurately, at least one solution is always obvious--but you can't define a problem accurately if you insist that the problem illustrate some other pattern or theory that you've attached your heart to for other reasons. Here's a thought, maybe Wisconsin is like a Roman circus that Right and Left Wingnuts created to obfuscate the fact that they don't know what the real nature of our society's problems are--like Rome's leaders they want to hold on to their own power by diverting the populace from awareness of the real threats on s...

Near as I can tell, the pastor who wants to burn Korans and the Imam who wants to build a "Cordoba House" on the edge of the hole in the ground created by his coreligionists are kind of the same man. Two different religions and slightly different beards--but in all the ways that count they are identical twins and identically repulsive. Too bad we can't join them at the hip, force them to live with each other, and the rest of us not have to deal with either of them. I have to say, I can never approve of burning books. History makes book burning just too uggy for words. By the same token, I'm tired of those who would control the American people and government by throwing temper tantrums and threatening violence. And in the meantime, even if we appease those who threaten, their folks commit violence anyway. If we just stopped trying to appease them--if our government declared that we would no longer attempt to appease them--if only their threats and violence didn...

Terrorists constitute only a small percentage of the Muslim population just as Nazis originally constituted only a small percentage of the German population. But in both cases the small percentage of evil individuals are adept at silencing any opposition from the majority population using fear tactics. Then, given time, the evil minority attracts the admiration and approbation of growing numbers of the silent majority because that evil minority are evil in ways that flatter the silent majority. Given enough time, the silent majority is willing to give lip service to evil even if they are not willing to participate in evil actions. Every society has some tiny percentage of evil people. If the majority are not willing to rise up against evil, the society itself is lost and the silent majority inevitably pays a steep price for the actions of the evil few. That is not unfair. If you do not stand up against evil, you are as guilty of the deeds of the evil as t...

The Chinese are suing us in the WTO because we don't import Chinese chickens. They want to force us to let them kill off yet another American industry using their usual unfair trade practices. I happen to know a lot of people whose dogs and cats died as a result of contaminated Chinese components in pet food sold in America. I don't for a moment believe that we could import Chinese chicken without Americans eventually dying from contaminated and unsanitary chicken. Even if they just feed their chickens antibiotics--as they feed the shrimp they sell here--that would be enough to produce new health risks for Americans.  Eating food containing antibiotics encourages the development of antibiotic resistant bugs We have enough of a problem with American farmers using antibiotics in livestock feed. We can't hope to control farmers in China and we can't expect the Chinese government to try to deal with the problem. As for the WTO, it makes me ...