82

AMERICA’S WAR MACHINE

Since about 65% of our budget is given up to war, there are a couple of questions I’d like to ask.  Assume our population is about 400 million. How many of us actually vote for a president to lead us ?

Eligible voters;  220 million

Registered voters;  146 million (Let’s assume most of these actually vote).

Therefor; about 70 million each for our two party system.?

Now, here’s my concern; How many voters work in the war industry? Boeing, Gen. Dynamics, Electronics, , Humvees, Tanks, Jet planes, Ship building etc.?

Now, since these employees may lose their jobs if we cut back on our Death Machines, do you think we will vote against any reduction in expenditures?

                                           

400 seat Auditorium for Institute for Human Awareness, Bruce Wisconsin

Plan and section

   

THE AMOEBA

You’ve seen my design for an extended Auditorium for The Institute for the Study Human Awareness (ISHA) (Blog #76),  I’d like you to see the interim & smaller auditorium for 400 people that will be built first In the middle of Wisconsin.  The program evolved into a wood dome of 72’ diameter with some support services extending out around it. After searching for an engineer who would calculate such a dome I located a small company in Portland Oregon who would engineer it, pre-fabricate and deliver to the site with a superintendent for about $25 per square foot. Aside from being a very attractive price, it is a very beautiful structure.  For those of you who are familiar with the new Catholic extravaganza in Oakland “The Cathedral of Christ the Light”. The huge Glu-lam structure was installed by Western Wood Structures , also our supplier. As an aside comment by an ex-Catholic, I can only hope the funds were donated by local philanthropists, and not extracted from the poor congregation..

THE GATHERING STORM

Just about the time I finished reading “Future Crime” the  Paris blood-bath occurred. The author described such things and how it will affect us in the future but maybe the future is here.  We can only hope that it is a two edged sword, and as happened in Paris, the bad guys used the internet (But cleverly used a gaming thing that is all about killing & mayhem,) so the good guys couldn’t separate the wheat from any chaff.  Terrorists use facebook to monitor progress of operatives in action situations, just as they did in Paris.

 Have you ever wondered how come all your internet thingies are free? (Facebook, Google, Yelp, etc.). It seems these companies bundle up all your information and sell it to advertising companies for a shit load of dough.  I can’t help showing the following parody from the Onion  in a fake news report.

Congress today reauthorized funding for Facebook, the massive online surveillance program run by the CIA. According to reports, Facebook has replaced almost every other CIA information –gathering program since it was launched in 2004.

 (A mock CIA official noted)  ”After years of secretly monitoring the public, we were astounded so many people would willingly publicize where they live, their religious and political views, an alphabetized list of all their friends, personal e-mail addresses, phone numbers, hundreds of photos of themselves, and even updates about what they were doing moment to moment, It is truly a dream come true for the CIA. Much of the  credit belongs to CIA agent Mark Zuckerberg, who runs the day-to-day Facebook operation for the agency”.

Wonderful !  However, Facebook keeps all my data even after I closed my account, and just try to get out of one of these. But it doesn’t matter, because my friends will tag me in pics, the GPS in my car will track my location and Target will  track my purchases. The Data Surveillance Industry (156 Billion / year !).  Acxion Corp. has 23,000 computer servers, 96% of American Households  are in it for behavioral targeting.  Facebook has acknowledged that 600,000 accounts are compromised every day. 

There are actually Websites for Hackers ! Ananomus, Lulzsec, etc. Can you believe it?

We already use Cyber Warfare; US & Israel sabotaged Iran’s centrifuges by a computer worm that got thru a USB thumb Drive, once there, it asked if machines were  run by Siemans Corp, if so, it infected the centrifuge and destroyed it. (And there were a lot of the machines. !).  Take that, you dirty rats !

SCREENWRITERS

I picked up an interesting book at the Graton Post Office (our lending library). It was  the screenplay written by James Dickey, (Deliverance)  just like it says on the movie credits.  Curious, I read it and wondered how accurate the actual movie was to this, so I ordered ‘Deliverance’ again to see it. I was very surprised how much the director changed  various parts of the story.  It seems the Director has complete control over the story line. The original probably centered more on the concept of “Kill or be killed,” and how to deal with the ensueing problems of getting rid of bodies and what story to tell the Police, and even your wife and friends.

KITCHEN NOTES

You probably have forgotten where all your nifty spices come from?

Saffron -  Originally from Greece. Saffron is now more expensive than gold.  In China, the monk’s golden robes came from saffron dyes.

Vanilla – From Mezo-america (Mexico?) as it’s natural pollinator, a bee, is only there. Produced now in West Indies (Cuba?) has to be hand pollinated.  Cortez brought some back to Europe.

Cardamon – From India, Vikings found it 1,000 years ago and it is now a favorite in Scandinavian countries.

Salt – Humans just followed animals to “Salt Licks”. The Maasai get their salt from drinking blood of livestock.

Pepper  - From India. Brought to New World by Columbus.  From Vietnam now.

Cinnamon  -  From Sri Lanka. From the bark of a cassia tree.

Nutmeg -  From Indonesia’s Banda Islands. This is where all the real money was made during the 16^th century and the West India Companies. The Dutch gave Manhatten to the English in exchange for control of nutmeg in these islands.

The Infernal Cubic Translator

PROPOSITION
 My grandson, Asam, visited us and proposed this;" If I could build a machine out of Legos that would solve Rubic's Cube in a couple of minutes, how much would you wager? " Having suffered untold humiliations and pain trying to solve one of those damn Cubes decades ago, I said I would put up $11 ( as that is his current birthday.). He went upstairs, came down carrying this Rube Goldberg contraption all made from the current version of Legos (I was not up on this at all). He had bought it all with his savings & allowances. He gave me a cube, said to really mix it up, which I did. He placed it in a kind of basket area of his Gizmo and it began right away with some sensors (lights) to decide what to do.   It then told him it would take about 27 moves to do it and proceed to turn and twist it's way to a pre-determined solution.
I'M STILL GASPING ON THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR !