"Schlonged"

When Donald Trump said, “She (Hillary Clinton) was favored to win (in 2008) and she got schlonged; she lost,” in a recent stump speech, he later claimed on Twitter that the word “schlonged” was not vulgar.  He wrote: “Schlonged is not vulgar.  When I said Hillary got ‘schlonged’ that meant beaten badly.”

 

As an expert on Yiddish slang and swear words, I feel obligated to correct him.  My expertise is the result of attending a high school in a Jewish ghetto in West Los Angeles.  Our high school was populated by over 80% Jewish students.  Our class poll deemed me “Best Sense of Humor.”  This honor would tend to confirm my familiarity with Yiddish slang.

The word schlong is used to describe the penis and it implies a large one.  The English translation would be cock.  It is a noun and is not used as a verb.  If Trump had an English professor in college, who happened to be Jewish, and Donald used the term “schlonged” in a paper, he would have been corrected.  The word schlong is used to describe a tool for joy, not for defeat.  “Schlonged” is not a word.  Just ask your spellchecker.

There are words that are Yiddish synonyms for the male organ that are indeed derogatory.  I’m sure that Mr. Trump heard these words whispered each time he passed a table occupied by Jews in a fine restaurant.  The words are “schmuck” and “putz”.  He heard them in high school and college, as well.  Any Jew that knows him well would use one of these two words to describe him.  Both words are nouns and are not turned into verbs by adding “ed” to the end of them.

If you call someone a putz, you are calling them an inconsequential fool.  If you refer to them as a schmuck, it better translates to a dishonest bastard.  I would guess that Donald heard schmuck more often than putz from his Jewish acquaintances.

   

If you conclude from this blog post that I don’t believe that Donald Trump would lead and represent our nation well … you are very perceptive.  If you believe that Trump would be a great President … I doubt that you read my blogs.   I know that you wouldn’t have made it through this one.

Cheers, Old Buz

Comments Welcome  

God, The Original Terrorist

Please know that this post is not written to offend intelligent people, those who believe that GOD (the Grand Omnipotent DNA), is the system of the Universe.  It is written to offend the simple majority, “True Believers” who believe in the literal God of the Bible.

An early act of terrorism performed by The Biblical God and some Angels under His command, is the act of Passover, celebrated by Jews and condoned by all Western Religions using the Old Testament as the foundation of their own bibles.   It involved flying over Egypt and murdering the first born sons of every Egyptian family.  These innocent victims had no TV or daily newspaper to inform them of the negotiations taking place between Moses and Pharaoh.  During the week that preceded the first Passover, God also killed the cows of Egypt.  You can’t get much more innocent than being a cow standing around chewing on some grass.

Before this there was the Noah Terrorism Act of God.  He killed every living being on Earth, other than a pair of each species that Noah let on the boat.  Noah allowed some of the folks in his family on the boat too.  Nepotism.  Now ask yourself, were all of the critters not on the boat sinners?  Even you True Believers know that they weren’t.  I mean … little bunnies and kittens … sinners!  No reader, this was the biggest act of terror ever. 

And you would think that The Lord’s kid, Jesus, might soften up.  But no, He decrees that the only way to Heaven is through Him.  So no thinking, reasoning people are going to Heaven!  Only the True Believers, the gullible, are going up.  Those of you who say, “I kind of doubt it” are going down to burn and it is for eternity.  No reincarnation in The Western World.  How is that for an unjust act of terror?  I guess that it runs in the family.  The bad seed.

Now how about ISIS?  They murder innocents in the name of God (Allah).  Are they any different than the ancient armies of The Israelites, who God told to march down into Channon and kill anything that breaths in and out, or more recently the Crusaders?  When George W. Bush was asked in a TV interview if he consulted his father before the Iraqi War, his answer was, “No, I consulted The Father.”  So, I guess you can blame our terrorist War in Iraq on God.

Please fact check me on this post.  Use The Holy Bible as a reference.  For the war in Iraq, use your memory (unless you watch FOX News).  For you True Believers, who believe that this blog will certainly send me to Hell, I doubt anyone ever went to Hell for telling the truth.  Both war and terrorism are the murder of innocents.

Cheers, Old Buz

Comments are welcome. 

"God Is Great"

“God is Great” is the war cry of today’s martyrs, before killing a lot of innocent strangers and then themselves.  My first reaction to the ISIS murder of 130 Parisians and the hospitalization of another 350 was, we ought to bomb the crap out of ISIS.  Then I realized that we and Russia have been doing just that.  I wondered why this event made me so angry.  The photos of bombed out cities in the Middle East do not anger me.  The casualties there don’t look like me.  I’m white, just like most of those Parisians and I even dress like the poor ones.  We speak the same language, but most of them have an accent.  After all, we nuked the Japanese rather than the Germans for just those two reasons.  I must admit that since the Japanese weren’t Christians and the Germans were, that might have entered into the decision.  George Bush said that our decision to attack Iraq, even though they had done nothing to us and presented no threat, had nothing to do with the fact that they were a Muslim nation of brown folks.  He also would say that it had nothing to do with oil or the munitions industries.  And, if our President said that, it must be true.

                                                Maybe God IS Great

                                                   But ISIS Sucks !

  

That is the T-shirt I want.  It would be nice if it were embellished with an American and a French flag.  It is really stupid to shout “God is Great”, and then murder a bunch of innocents.  If God is even good, he certainly can’t obtain greatness by backing psychopaths in their actions.  I suppose that this logic would apply to any soldier, of any nation, who thinks that “God Is On Our Side”.  Logically it would also apply to those who sponsor them (taxpayers).

So, what is a rational reaction to ISIS, the revolutionary forces trying to create a Muslim Nation, From Sea to Shining Sea?  A secular nation would be a better idea, but no one seems to do that.  Such a nation would be stuck with the “Do unto others …” concept, rather than God is on our side.  The true logic of God is on our side, is God is on My side.  The logic of an egotistical fool.

Back to the solution.  It obviously would not be to escalate the problem.  The world that sees itself as rational, might lead through example.  Like, stop the bombing.  Bombing is the tool of collateral damage.  There are nations in Africa who have ended centuries of oppression peacefully.  It is possible.  Help and suggest better methods rather than bombing and marching.  You will still have some do gooders killed, while trying to help, but many less than in a war and the do gooders killed, have a chance at Heaven, whereas the “brave” warriors have none.  This, of course, assumes that God actually is great (it also assumes that the imaginary concept of Heaven exists).  Send out teachers, food, water systems and engineers to help the developing nations.  Keep a few soldiers and their equipment within our borders.  This is just in case a nation that you are trying to help, might want to attack you.  What if there really were “A Shining Tower” in our world?   But alas, our Earth is but “A Ship of Fools.”  Enjoy your voyage through the Universe.  “God Is Great.”

Comments are welcome.

Cheers, Old Buz The Pacifist

"9/11 ... Miracle or Demolition?"

I recently had lunch with a friend, a couple of days after September 11^th.  My friend is a Republican and a conservative Christian.  He also happens to be a construction foreman for commercial buildings.  He seemed to be the right man to ask the opinion of, about the falling of The Twin Towers, on 9/11.  My friend said, “When I saw the plane hit the first tower, then the building go down, I thought those terrorists won the Lottery (about a 800,000,000:1 chance), but when I saw the second building go down, my thought was demolition.”

When I saw the towers go straight down onto their footprints, at the speed of a freely falling body, my first thought was, “Impossible.”  I’m not a gambler.  Bin Laden gave a speech shortly after the event in which some say he took responsibility for the aircraft, but he thanked Allah for taking down the buildings.  In other words, he thought it was a miracle.  Too bad we shot him through his Teddy Bear, and then dumped his body in the ocean within 24 hours.  It would have been interesting to see him tried for the crime.

We all saw the two airliners slam into the two towers.  Most, if not all of their fuel ignited at the time of impact.  A short time after that, each building fell straight to the ground, as fast as a freely falling body and landed right on its own footprint.  Miraculously, there seemed to be no iron beams to slow down or tilt the fall.  This is a problem.

Two explanations have been offered for the event.  One is that each floor would not support the weight and force of the floor above collapsing on it.  This would have resulted in: “plop …… plop ….. plop …. plop … plop .. plop . plop . plop . plop . etc.”  The problem with this theory is …  it went, “whoosh”  with no hesitation.  The second theory offered is that fuel from the aircraft flowed down the beams, lit then instantly melted them.  Lots of problems here.  How much fuel was remaining after the initial explosion?  How could the fuel remaining flow evenly down the beams, in order to ignite all of the way up and down the beams, so that the building would go down as straight as an arrow and all at once?  The buildings were hit from the side.  Why would they not fall to the side?  This jet fuel can burn in an engine all the way from New York to California without melting the engines.  It is mixed with oxygen in exactly the right amount to give the most heat and energy to the explosion.  These engines are made of pretty much the same material as the beams in the Towers.  How did that fuel melt those beams?  The building’s floors are fastened to the beams.  How did the fuel flow so quickly past the floors in order to remove the beams from top to bottom?

I don’t see Bin Laden’s miracle happening.  And, I have trouble with the government’s explanations.  No miracle took place on 9/11 in New York, but there was some excellent quality demolition on that day.

“It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”  - Mark Twain.   There is a disagreement on Twain being the source of this quote.  From my standpoint, that is of little importance.  The quote is a true statement.

Cheers, Old Buz

Comments are welcome.

"Born An Agnostic

“Born an Agnostic and with God’s help, I will remain one.”  I would like to have that on a T-shirt.  For those who would smile, hello.  For those who would look perplexed, the thought could offer a tiny step out of the fog of religion.  My quote is a statement that contradicts itself, as The Bible often contradicts itself.  An agnostic has questions, but few answers.  The religious have answers, but few questions.  I would contend that a questioning mind is a healthy one.  It is less judgmental and more open to new information.

The Atheists that I have encountered contend that there is no God.  I find that statement as close minded as, “There is only one God and He is The God of my bible.”   Intelligent design makes sense to me.  Not the Intelligent Design of the Right Wing Christian, but the idea that the systems that we see in action in our universe, are not random.  A good example of this is DNA, found in all living things.  Even a quick look at this system indicates that it is not random and that the DNA system preceded the survival of the fittest theory.   The DNA of a critter was in place long before it had a chance to survive or fail.  It couldn’t have existed without it.   The word “Intelligent” is problematic.  I think that to the “Intelligent Design Folks” that the word somehow relates to human intelligence, as it does to the Gods of the bibles.  The Gods that I have read about in the bibles don’t have the brain power to design the universe.  They take advice from the tiny human brains that wrote the books. Moses: “God, I don’t think that you should kill all of your people for worshiping false idols.  It will make you look weak when compared to other gods.”  God:  “Yup, Moses, I guess you are right.  Can I just kill half of them?”  You see, Bible Readers are as gullible as Atheists.  You folks who have Faith in your Bible, but haven’t read it, should read it.  There are some good laughs in that book.

So, God did see me born an agnostic and gave me a questioning mind that, I expect will keep me an agnostic.  And if God has chosen to bless America, above all other nations, why didn’t he write His instruction book in English?

 

“We are all living in a miracle.”  “See what is plain to see.  Doubt what is not.” - Daniel

Cheers, Old Buz The Agnostic

Comments are welcome.

"When Money Talks, Democracy Walks."

The United States of America has officially passed fail-safe in terms of turning its governance over to financial interests.  When our Supreme Court determined in the Citizens United Decision that a corporation could remain anonymous while donating unlimited dollars to a political action committee, five of the nine justices sold our democracy to the highest bidder.   The PACs (political action committees) own both the Democratic and Republican parties and the parties control the representatives.   This control is exercised on the representative through disbursement of campaign funds and committee assignment and the position on the assigned committee.  As you know, the committees rule the game.  If you watch CSPAN, you know that the representatives don’t listen to floor debate.  They only show up when a vote is called.  The work, debate on, and form of a bill, is determined in committee and if you watch the floor votes, you will see that the representatives pretty much vote along party lines.  All of this is nothing new.  It simply became official with Citizens United.  All three branches of the government answer to large dollar interests.  Both parties do.

This subject was brought to my attention this morning when I read the headline of my newspaper.  “Water does flow on Mars.”  That’s nice, I thought.  I wonder how many tax dollars were spent in order to obtain that bit of information.  Had to buy space ships, an orbiter, telescopes and to pay all of those brilliant minds to work on the project.  I have to admit that I would vote for using those funds for developing desalinization plants to flow water here in the United States.  I never did get to vote on that, but I can guarantee you that lobbyists had some input.  We are talking about major tax dollar expenditures.  Science is great.  I like it better than religion, but there is a water shortage and we have known about it for some time.  Spend the money for the greatest common good, not for the enrichment of the vendors.

Another example of large money being more appealing than the Country’s needs is Donald Trump’s candidacy.  He is right now the leading Republican candidate for President of The United States.  It can’t be attributed to his political abilities.  He has offended every group of American voters, other than white males.  It isn’t his family values.  He is on his third wife.  It isn’t his physical appearance.  He has a silly looking hairstyle.  He pouts and gets a dumb look on his face when proven wrong.  It isn’t his business ethics.  He claims that he has never gone personally bankrupt, but anyone who has owned a closely held corporation knows that the corporation is you and that the only reason the business is owned as a corporation is to shield personal liability and for tax advantages.  So when closely held corporations of yours have gone bankrupt four times … you have gone bankrupt four times and when you have done that profitably, you are a thief.  I say that because the simple way to a profitable bankruptcy is to borrow, then move assets elsewhere, losing only a shell of a corporation, but canceling its debts.   Trump can do this more often than once every seven years, because each of his corporations is treated as a separate entity.  When Donald said that he did this to bankers, everyone at the first Republican debate laughed and applauded.  That is a gullible crowd.  A bankruptcy doesn’t cost a banker a dime, but it does cost his depositors millions.  In some cases billions.  Who are these “depositors”?  Try retirement funds, corporate deposits, and personal deposits … that is, all of you.   The purpose of bankruptcy law is a shield for the poor and financial failures, not a sword for the wealthy.  Trump says that he follows the law.  No … he abuses the law.   Trump says that he has bought favors from politicians.  Bribed them that is, but legally.   Do you think that his morals will change in office?  Why does this man lead the Republican polls?  He won’t win the general election and perhaps not the Republican primary, but he is a dangerous sign of the direction of our moral values as a nation.

“When Money Talks, Democracy Walks.”  What are we going to do about that?

Comments are welcome.  Cheers, Old Buz.

Windows Gives You "The Cloud"

Perhaps “gives you” is not correct wording.  You are being forced into The Cloud.  Ask yourself, “What is The Cloud?”.  To start with; it is obviously not a cloud.  A cloud sounds so nice.  Heaven is just above the clouds.  The Cloud is a giant data base, which is being joined by the information from your computer, as well as everyone else’s.  This giant data base falls under the oversight of NSA (a government institution).  With all computer data joined in The Cloud, this data can be searched by our government, our corporations and hackers.  As we saw with the introduction of ObamaCare, a large government database can fail and it doesn’t quickly jump back up.  I have an inexpensive desktop computer, which cost $299 and operates on Windows 7.  It has a 450 gigabyte information storage system.  This is more storage than I would use in two lifetimes.  I have no need or desire to put my computer information in The Cloud and my present operating system does not require it.  You folks with MAC need not be smug about Windows users being forced into The Cloud.  MAC users have been there for some time.

How is Windows forcing me into The Cloud?  They are presently offering me a “free” upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10.  Windows 8 was a disaster, hated by most Windows users.  Windows 9 never was marketed.  When a large corporation offers you something for free, you can be fairly certain that the benefits from the gift are mostly theirs.  The Cloud, on the Windows website, describing 10, tells you that The Cloud is an available feature.  Outside evaluations of 10, tell you that The Cloud is a required portion for the operation of Windows 10.  I will not choose to switch to this gift offering.  I believe that In the near future, Windows will inform their Windows 7 users (and previous operating system users) that they will no longer support systems that preceded 10.  I will risk it without their support.  Windows’ next step will probably be to introduce a virus, over the internet, that disables pre-10 systems and offer out of the goodness of their corporate hearts, a free installation of Windows 10, which will be able to cure the virus.  At this junction, you will either try to get all personal information (Hillary it) from your hard disc and join the system, or toss your computer in the trash and move back to the 1960’s.

George Orwell wrote in his sci-fi novel, 1984, that the government will step into our personal lives at that time.  We need to be thankful for the 30 year reprieve. 

Cheers, Old Buz

All comments are welcome.

"Andre Iguodala, God's Warrior"

Andre Iguodala is the MVP of the Warrior’s winning of the 2015 NBA Basketball Championship (the honor was well deserved).  In an interview, right after the game, the MVP credited God for the win.  Who am I to disagree with an MVP, but the assumption does raise some questions in my agnostic mind?  Like, why does God favor Oakland over Cleveland?  What has Cleveland ever done to Him?  There is probably a higher percentage of drug abuse, gay marriage and reason, in the Bay Area than there is in Cleveland.  Aren’t those traits that The God of The Bible opposes?  Why did God punish those poor Cleveland bastards?

Perhaps the answer lies in the actions of Lebron James, earlier that day.  James was quoted as saying that his Cavaliers would win the sixth game because he is the best player in today’s game of basketball.  This is a clear example of the sin of Pride.  It happens that he is the best there is in the game today, but saying so, even if true, is a sin.   Now, my question would be, “Does Stephen Curry (another of God’s Warriors) think he is the best in the game?”  Curry certainly performs way above his physical stature.  I’m not sure that an athlete doesn’t have to have that self-confidence, in order to perform at that championship level.  Curry is a quiet sort, so he wouldn’t do the bragging that James does.

There was a stadium full of people and a large group outside of the stadium, praying for the Cleveland team to win that game.  That is a lot of focused praying.  Did God pay no attention to all of that praying, because Lebron ran his mouth?  Are 50,000 prayers less important than one slip of the tongue?  Could God not have broken James’s leg on the first tip-off and yet let the home team win?  He could still allow the Warriors to win game seven at their stadium, if Andre is correct.  Something is wrong here!  I hate to give God advice, but that never stopped Moses.

Iguodala, God’s Warrior, could not hit a free throw to save his soul.  It was like God was teaching him a lesson at the foul line.  God’s Lid was on that basket.  What is the message here?  Was it for Iguodala not to get a big head to go with his big arms?  I suspect it was a lesson in Pride.  “Andre, you will not hit a free-throw unless I say so.” – God  (When I played basketball at Loyola University, Los Angeles, most members of the team crossed themselves before shooting a free-throw.  We still only hit a normal percentage.  Go figure.)

I think The God of The Bible screws up the game.  He should keep his nose out of athletics and schools.  I would like to see us living with an awareness of the miracle of existence, not national championships or men sharing the Earth with Dinosaurs.  Life is so much simpler if you try to stick with reason.  Or, is life “beyond the human intellect”?  What do you think?

Cheers, Old Buz The Agnostic

Comments are Welcome

"G.O.D."

Just as IBM stands for International Business Machines, GOD stands for the Grand Omnipotent D.N.A.  The Grand Omnipotent DNA is the system of the universe, just as your DNA is the system or blueprint of your individual being.  So, GOD is the system of the universe and you Atheists might as well throw in the towel.  After all, there is a system.

“Dark Matter” is the scientific terminology for “we don’t understand it.”  The formulas that deal with dark matter are constantly changing, being modified and none move to the level of scientific  law. Twenty years from now, many scientists will laugh at today’s scientific theories.  There is nothing wrong with that.  I applaud a belief system that corrects itself as it accumulates knowledge.  Too bad that our most popular belief systems don’t do that.

Enough reason (anti-religious babble).  Our free market system and uber-capitalism is bringing an end to our society.  I don’t wish to sound like Chicken-Little, but we are running out of fresh water.  In California 2,700 farms have been threatened, by the state, to stop allowing the pumping of river water to irrigate their crops.  This short term bandage will help Californians with their bathing, drinking and landscaping, but it will raise the cost and lower the availability of food, in California and all over the nation.  How could this happen?  We have known about the water shortage in the Southwest and elsewhere for decades.  We presently have the technology to solve the problem.  It is called desalinization.  An atomic aircraft carrier produces 400,000 gallons of clear water from sea water a day.  Saudi Arabia and Sydney, Australia both get their water from the sea.  Desalinization can be powered by solar energy, without polluting the air or using up fossil fuel.  Then why aren’t there modern desalinization plants strategically located along our ocean and gulf coastlines?  Well, our utility companies are generally large corporations.  Their decisions are not based on the common good, but on quarterly profits and presently it is cheaper to pull fresh water from ground water and rivers than to build and operate desalinization facilities.  This will of course change with improved technology and scarcity of available clear water, but short term profitably will still not call for the capitalization to build the facilities.   Sorry you utility stockholders, all utilities need to be nationalized.  They are a natural monopoly or oligarchy and neither works well in a “free market” system.  “Give me water, or give me death”.  A reasonable quote and so true.

Where does G.O.D. come into the picture?  Well, presently we and many other nations of the world are spending huge sums of national wealth on studying the Higgs Boson, commonly referred to as “The God Particle”.  The budget for this program is 5.1 billion dollars.  It is the study of a particle that exists two dimensions away from our awareness.  It is a sub-atomic particle.  Our transgression into the atomic world has thus far given us a dangerous source of energy with unmanageable byproducts and a weapon system that we have used to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and is scheduled to murder many more and perhaps to end civilization as we know it.  I think we would be better off staying in our own dimension.  Below the atomic dimension, lives the sub-atomic dimension and this is where the God particle resides.  The Higgs Boson has 126 times the mass of a proton.  Not important to you and me, but it is a balancing factor involved in the gravity of our universe.  The experimentation on Higgs Boson involves firing the particle, at the speed of light, down a 17mile tunnel, into another Higgs Boson.  The exact result of the collision is a bit of an unknown.  One unlucky quantum fluctuation, or a change in energy, could trigger a process called, “quantum tunneling”.  This quantum fluctuation would likely cause a chain reaction that will destroy the universe.  Not to worry.  There will be no pain.  The “God Particle” will simply turn off your lights.

You live in a democracy.  It isn’t presently working.  Did you ever vote to use tax dollars to support Higgs Boson research and facility construction rather than on desalinization research and facilities?  Do you have any real interest in Higgs Boson?  What are the benefits?  For that matter, what are the benefits of sending a man to Mars, as opposed to desalinization of water or improvements in education, or improvements in healthcare?  We have limited funds and that implies choices.  Yes, I love science and the possible increase in knowledge that it brings.  But when the benefit is to the scientist and not to the population in general, then I want a vote in how my tax dollars are spent.  I will vote for vocational and preschool education over playing two dimensions out of my awareness into a realm that may usher in the end of our universe.  And, let’s solve the water shortage.  It is time to get out the pitchforks and torches.

Cheers, Old Buz   
comments are welcome     

"An Easter Blessing"

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  -John 3:16

This quote is taken from The New International Version of The Holy Bible, but it reads pretty much the same in any Christian bible.  It describes the sacrifice of an innocent for the saving of sinners.  Why would anyone suggest such a twisted moral value?  The people of The Book did their sacrifices with innocent lambs before God ended that practice with His Kid.  This single act ended the shortage of mutton in the Holy Land.

What lesson can we take from this mythology?  That … the concept of “sacrifice of the innocent” is both insane and immoral.  Does this prove that God does not exist or is immoral?  No, it certainly does not.  What does God have to do with a bible?   It does tend to indicate that bibles are mythology and give a mixed message on morality.  Islamist fanatics are presently sacrificing innocents, they call them infidels, in the belief that the act will send them to Heaven, when in fact, if there is such a place, they have their direction confused.

So, how do we resurrect God?  The first step is to free the Concept from the various fantasy books called bibles.  The next step would be a better definition of God that most could accept: “God is the system of the Universe”.

 

With that concept as your personal foundation, you can move forward without having to apologize for your belief system and its irrational, immoral concepts such as, “The only way for you to go to Heaven, is by believing what I believe”.  That belief sets the mark for self-centered, delusional beliefs.  Many religions have it at their center.

 

Next, after “God is the system of the Universe”, might be the idea that Humanists suggest, that being the best you can be is making the World as good a place as it can be, both for your fellow humans and the environment you live in.  How is that for an unselfish, reasonable concept?  Go ahead, if you wish and tell fairy tales to your children, but at a young age tell them that they are fairy tales, or they will be passed on to future generations as truth.  A fairy tale held as truth is not good for the brain.  It inhibits reason and logic and may well lead to immoral acts, such as war.

Happy Easter and a Happy Passover.  May this year bring you happiness and thoughtfulness.

Cheers, Old Buz The Curmudgeon

Comments are welcome.

"Selling Drones, The World Over"

The Obama administration is amending its regulations for weapons sales to allow the export of armed military drones to responsible, “friendly nations and allies.”  Truth is: we will always sell any weapon to any nation that has the money.  We are in the arms business.  Olin Industries (Winchester) sold cartridges to the Italian army when we were at war with them in the 40s.  We sold and supplied arms to a terrorist rebel force in Afghanistan, who were attacking Russian troops.  We cared not how they treated women or that they believed in Sharia Law.  Bin Laden was a hero then.  Today that “friend” is called the Taliban or al-Qaeda.  My point is, “friendly nations and allies” change with time.  Japan and Germany are another good example of the principle of enemies in time.  Iraq was a friendly nation, until they frightened the Saudis.  Our government takes orders from oil rich Saudi Arabia. Please try not to mix moral values or the common good with the business of arms sales or our oil industry’s needs.

How does our nation responsibly use drones?  We bomb in nations that we aren’t actually at war with, such as Pakistan.  We bomb the homes of “suspected” terrorists.  To hell with collateral damage.  Criminal justice and international law are not really an issue.  We will sell these military drones to other nations along with a set of rules for their usage.  Rules that we ourselves do not adhere to.  When another country has purchased drones from us, as the rightful owner, they will determine how and when the drones are used.

Drones are not a bad thing.  When I was growing up in the 40s and 50s, they were called RC (radio controlled) model airplanes.  The nerd next door had one and I would go to watch him fly it.  The nerds of today have cell phones, as do the rest of the humanoids.  The German Luftwaffe had a different use for RC airplanes at the time; they used them as winged bombs, for targeting Allied ships.  Radio Control has been with us for some time.  Nikola “Tesla” (a brand name on some rich folk’s cars) demonstrated a remote control boat in 1898.   In a better day, during the 1930’s, the Good brothers, Bill and Walt, pioneered RC models for hobby use.  I guess you could conclude that Good intentions are often put to destructive use.  Drones will be used for killing in future wars, by all nations, whether we export them today or not.  We will simply make a buck and save our present friends some R&D expenditure.  So, “Let the Good times roll.”

Comments are welcome, Old Buz 

"SNL Feed: AZ Gov. Doug Ducey"

For many years now, the Arizona Governor and the Arizona Legislature that he or she leads, has been a great potential source of material for Saturday Night Live.  The humorous buffoonery supplied by George Bush, Jr. has been nicely replaced by the antics of the Arizona Ultra-Right, which controls Arizona government.  Governor Doug Ducey has started his term in office with the same type of hilarity as his recent predecessors.  Recently, he has done away with his office’s visitor log.  Our newspaper quoted him as saying, at a recent news conference, “Our review said that those logs were incomplete and inaccurate.  So we didn’t want to present something that was incomplete and inaccurate.”  The Governor’s response to the problem was not to improve the accuracy of the log, but to get rid of it.  A Ducey spokesman said, “No logs mean a savings on paperwork and better efficiency for the office.”  A better punch line could not be written.  You Arizona folks can kiss your transparency in government goodbye.  Doug’s corporate sponsors’ visits to the governor’s office will go unnoticed by you.  Probably the simple majority of Arizonans will like it that way.

   

When I go for an annual wellness visit at my doctor’s office, I have to sign in on the log.  The secretary greets me at the desk, marks me in on her computer calendar.  The doctor’s assistant calls me in and takes my blood pressure, my pulse and my height, each of which she records in my file.  The doctor then sees me and asks a myriad of questions, which he duly records in my file.  Each visit involves a HICFA form to be sent to my health insurance carrier.  You don’t see the doctor, without signing in on the visitor’s log.  “So what?” you might say.  Well, all that I am saying here is that something as unimportant as my annual check-up is pretty well documented, including my signed admission that I was there, but if the CEO of a coal fired power supplier or their lobbyist visits our Governor, “it is very expensive and exhausting” to record those visits.  The governors who preceded Doug Ducey were able to do it, with much less technology at their fingertips.  In the interest of transparency, I believe that our governor should walk the extra mile.  I don’t mean to limit his freewheeling capitalist spirit.

Our Arizona public schools normally fall in about the 48^th position in the state ratings for educational excellence.  The Governor might see the system as “incomplete and inaccurate”.   I would hope that Gov. Ducey would not see the solution to the state’s education problems solved by ending public schools.  Doug Ducey has served as a board member of the Arizona State Charter School Board.  Hopefully, as an ultra-conservative, he doesn’t see excellent education only for the children of the wealthy as a “savings on paperwork and better efficiency” for the state, versus a better education for all.   Doug Ducey, in the private sector, has been a bright and effective manager.  Let us hope that he is able to come out of the conservative fog and stop the State of Arizona from supplying material to Saturday Night Live. 

  

  Comments are welcome, Old Buz

"NRA: Any Gun, Any One, Anywhere"

The National Rifle Association’s mission, in our Nation today, is just that:  “any firearm, in anyone’s hands (sane, violent criminal or not), to be taken anywhere” would equal Freedom in America.  The people who run the NRA are not insane; they are owned and guided by the dollars of munitions manufacturers.  The NRA functions just as our government does.  When the battle lines are drawn between the common good and large dollar interests, it is the power of money that always wins the day.  It isn’t just your elected representatives that are owned and ruled by large corporate dollars.  The appointed U.S. Supreme Court is also (example: Citizens United Decision).

“Two years ago last week, President Obama ordered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get back to studying the causes of gun violence.”  - The Washington Post.  This order was issued by Obama in response to the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary.  Congress responded to the order by not funding the research, due in no small part to NRA influence.  I’m not sure that I would support such a study myself.  You can easily predict the study’s outcome.  It will show a bell curve of the American population.    A couple of standard deviations to the right of this violent population, will be the mass murderers, who would like to shoot up large numbers of innocent students and at their tip, the few who actually do so.  At the center, or top of the curve, is the simple majority (you and me).  We enjoy violent video games, violent TV series, violent films and read the stories in our newspapers of our Storm Troopers of The American Empire vanquishing “the others or the terrorists” in lands far, far away.  We each own one or more deadly weapons.  On the left of the curve, are a tiny number of pacifists (these are the people who think), they don’t belong here in America any more than the psychopathic killers on the far right side do.  The right and left indications mentioned are not political beliefs; they are positions represented on a bell chart.  The Political Right might tend to align with the NRA, but that is a topic for another day (you dumb-ass Ultra- Right-Wingers need not take offence).

In today’s paper, there is also an editorial written by Fareed Zakaria in which he quotes Andrew Bacevich, military historian, in pointing out that before Syria, Washington had already launched interventions in 13 countries in the Islamic World since 1980.  Zakaria wonders if one more intervention, into Syria, will really do the trick of stopping terrorism.  You do wonder if the U.S. interventions aren’t part of the cause rather than the cure.  There seems at least to be a positive correlation.  The munitions manufacturers and the NRA would certainly not like to see the killing stop.  Can’t make any money if that happens.  That concept is our Nation’s true moral guide.  God Bless America’s Corporations.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz

"Religion, The Mother of Satire"

The first woman, who liked to play around and told her gullible husband that his new born son was the child of The Sun God, was a pioneer in religious thought.  When Mr. Gullible told a friend, an early Satirist, of the blessed event, the Satirist said, “Why don’t you name him Sunny, after his Father?”  This joke wouldn’t have gotten the Satirist a writer’s job on late night TV, but it invented that form of Satire.  A modern day example would be the bumper sticker that says, “Honk, if you love Jesus.  Text, if you want to meet Him.”   You see, the form is the same.  Start with a stupid statement, like the use of a warning signal to show that you love a myth and then show how absurd it is by adding a thought that is even dumber, by advising texting while driving.

It has long been popular to murder folks for not believing in your mythology of choice.  The churches have supported it, from the stoning deaths depicted in The Old Testament to the Jihad of the Koran.  We people of the Bible, in the U.S., just murdered over one hundred thousand innocents in Iraq.  No creditable reason has been offered for the “mistake.”  Being a Satirist, I am still looking for the punch line for that one.   Do you have any suggestions?

The great Satirists of our time, like Lewis Black, George Carlin, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, are not listened to by the Ultra-Right.  The Ultra-Right simply doesn’t see the humor in the Satirist’s humor.  T-shirts and bumper stickers might be a better vehicle to reach them with, but the same problem in communication would exist.  I saw a t-shirt the other day that said, “When you stop saying stupid things, I will stop answering you with satire.”  This would be the view of a pompous ass, that is, your average Satirist.  God Bless the pompous asses.  If joy is the goal in life, a study of the lives of Satirists will show you that satire is not the path to take.  Being a religious gullible is a much better path to happiness.  That is, unless you are a radical Islamist martyr.  Their world has little room for humor in it, as was shown recently in Paris.  If you can’t laugh at religion, what besides government is there to laugh at?  … War?

This blog spot is really written to my fellow People of Satire.  If you Satirists are reading this, remember to respect and be kind to your Mother.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz The Satirist

(The term “Satire” is capitalized in the text, because I believe it becomes a religion to its frequent user.)