Could GMO Crops Help End Afghanistan Conflict, or Mexican Cartel Terror?

With so much skill built up in genetically modifying crops one must wonder if the Afghanistan conflict with the Taliban that is partially funded by opium producers could be reduced with the introduction of genetically modified opium poppies that had no potential for use in the manufacture of opium ort heroin? The poppy crop may be worth as much as seven billion dollars.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/05/1010332

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2018/May/last-years-record-opium-production-in-afghanistan-threatens-sustainable-development--latest-survey-reveals.html

Theoretically the modified poppies would readily interbreed with existing poppies and render the regular poppies useless for opium production.

 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101104154224.htm

One must wonder if other dope producing plants could not be converted into non-mind altering potential through genetic modification in the field. Governments might invest a modest amount of research funding to potentially reduce problems from terrorist funding via illegal drug production.

What an Alaska Governor Can Do to Reduce Costs

Governments can approach delivery of services issues in new and more efficient ways. The Governor has the opportunity to try that, as does anyone in the office. Education can be restructured, and different buildings for physical campus needs rethought to synergize with other state-funded structures and internet-sharing facilities and adding on-line programs elsewhere to count as part of Alaska State College accreditation. 

The Marine Highway system can be regarded as four zones instead of one and most efficient and cost-effective services with minimal luxury boats on dedicated routes interfaced with land and air connections as well as private entrepreneurs in the transportation field to reduce overall costs. 

Fuel cell power plants, earth heating for state new state buildings, more super-insulated domes in rural structures, Tesla trucks with stainless steel bodies for Juneau and other S.E. locations with state recharging stations usable by the public too. Wind and solar farms with flip panel barn doors to shelter solar cells in harsh winters with little sunshine.

Recombining existing structures and bureaucratic processing to enhance efficiency should reduce overall costs. It requires critical, creative thought to make changes based on deep understanding of the geography, demography and tools of technology available to apply to a reformed government system.

Why An Absolute Empowered Single-Ruler World Could Evolve

A modern absolute ruler probably would reply heavily on A.I. and expert systems to rule the world. Because humans could be designed from the feet up genetically someday, perhaps becoming like pets to Artificial Intelligence, it would be a good idea to have a human moderator with dictatorial power to pull the plug on the A.I. machine.

The human supervisor might need a squeal oversight committee with lots of whistle blowers to overcome the dictator’s supervision of the A.I. Like the dictators of the Roman Republic the world ruler’s term of office would be limited to a couple years (it was one year renewable in Republican Rome).

It is possible that global warming, mass extinctions and the limits of Earth’s carrying capacity will drive human civilization to select a dictator for a year to run things with heavy condign power implementation in order to survive- especially if politicians cannot even balance a federal budget or avoid deficits reaching dozens of trillions of dollars in a democratic paradigm.

In some respects the ancient political philosophy paradigms that Aristotle wrote of in The Politics haven't changed. The basic paradigm of democracy collapsing into tyranny because the voters and politicians aren't competent at public affairs remains a prospect for voters reestablishing an imperium via concentrated wealth perhaps, or simply and election.

Neither has the Republic's paradigm of ancient Rome in the Republican era lost its Platonic power. Besides being a Republic with a limited franchise that had not yet degraded into democracy with universal franchise, the Roman Republic appointed a dictator whenever existential crisis (usually war) threatened. Because the Romans appointed a Master of the Horse in addition to Dictator for a Year, the Republic resembled reasonably well the structure of the Republic of Plato. The paradigms of Dictator and Imperial Empire for the evolutionary course of a democracy are to this day live possibilities for a world incapable of ruling itself intelligently. *

Politics have evolved comparatively little since ancient times. The printing press just gradually allowed more people to read ancient political philosophy. In its absence despotism, monarchy and absolute rule to various degrees prevailed until the past few hundred years. While technology has evolve much, political thought has not. Marx's attempt at fine tuning Plebeian rights was not a significant departure from the basic Aristotelian and Platonic categories.

There are many ways to provide cheap health care for the poor yet both major American parties want to avoid that. Here is an example of a better, cheaper way…

The U.S.Government has politicians that reflect the state of greed and ordinary ignorance about government that has developed following the Reagan administration when a million bi-partisan sycophants used that administration's Cold War emergency fiscal policies as a template for the ordinary way to do business. Financial responsibility was gradually jettisoned over the side of the ship of state by Republicans and Democrats alike. Maybe they believe the global warming end of the world in 12 years will erase the national debt too.

It is the poor that will suffer most from the public debt crisis. Eventually programs that relieve them from suffering and social oppression will be cut back with rhetoric from satiated politicians that appeal to the middle class for support with welfare programs that should benefit just those poor people in need.

If everyone collects on health insurance it will work for no one. The same principle applies to social security. If everyone that pays into it draws from it in retirement it will not work. The federal social security system should pay benefits just to those that need it- it isn't a savings account or a 401K plan. That system should provide just one size payment to all that need it. Work in ten different years and meet a certain earnings threshold and have a maximum annual income and savings balance and the single payment level would be yours. The problem is that those that don't need it feel they have a right to a full refund for what they paid into it thought they don't need it. If health insurance worked that way too, health insurance would probably not work either.

  If Americans did not use social security without needing it the actual payments that go in to it would be lower for everyone during their working years. Other government programs could be reformed too.

Maybe the federal government should divert a portion of present social security deductions to a floating bond program at a 50-50 ratio. If people don't need a social security check they would at least get their bond value payoff.

One may have confidence that politicians will just argue and enrich themselves (and an aristocracy) of their own disposition. One may have confidence that politicians will just argue and enrich themselves (and an aristocracy) of their own disposition. One world ruler with the appropriate tools will seem like a glimmer of hope during roilsome ecospheric and social decay that may lie ahead.

*Socialism and communism are a way of ossifying the egalitarian elements of democracy concerning economy and social status. They too however lead to collapse and tyranny; a dictatorship of the proletariat, or rather, a dictatorship from the proletariat. In other words, a dictator like Joseph Stalin arises from the insider, elite party cadre to eliminate rival cadre.

Partisan Judges and SecNav Insubordination

Democrats seem to feel that it is open enrollment season to attack the President. The Secretary of the navy recently fired - Richard Spencer- claims he was obeying the law in working his own will instead of that of his Commander-in-Chief regarding the Gallagher issue. A SecNav is in the military chain of command and need obey his commander unless the commander makes an illegal order. All military personnel are obligated to disobey illegal orders. President Trump did not make an illegal order to his subordinate though, so it appears the former SevNav was merely insubordinate and rightly dismissed. A SecNav isn't the Attorney General who should mull over things regarding legality more so than a SecNav who should let the President worry amorphous points of law (who probably would delegate that task to an attorney).

A U.S. District Court Judge appointed by President Obama made a ruling that President Trump's former personal attorney must appear to testify before Congress. The problem with that is that virtually every decision against President Trump the past couple of years seems to have been made by Democrat appointed judges making the conflict of interest too obvious. Maybe partisan judges should recuse themselves when they have too much invested in being biased against a Republican President. All those Democrat judges may wreak long-term damage to the reputation of the judiciary.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/don-mcgahn-former-white-house-counsel-must-comply-subpoena-trump-impeachment-case-judge-rules/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketanji_Brown_Jackson

Presidential Candidates are Wimps on Public Debt and Budget Balance

The 2020 crop of Presidential candidates are wimps on public debt and bringing the federal budget in to balance. They believe adults and non-yippees have to do such things as kept a government or company solvent and without excess debt load. The public debt is north of 23 trillion dollars and the annual interest approaching a trillion; about as much as the defense budget. That is a concern- public debt is the dark matter no one wants to meet in the dark alley of reality.

The U.S. Government has politicians that reflect the state of greed and ordinary ignorance about government that has developed following the Reagan administration when a million bi-partisan sycophants used that administration's Cold War emergency fiscal policies as a template for the ordinary way to do business. Financial responsibility was gradually jettisoned over the side of the ship of state by Republicans and Democrats alike. Maybe they believe the global warming end of the world in 12 years will erase the national debt too.

It is the poor that will suffer most from the public debt crisis. Eventually programs that relieve them from suffering and social oppression will be cut back with rhetoric from satiated politicians that appeal to the middle class for support with welfare programs that should benefit just those poor people in need.

If everyone collects on health insurance it will work for no one. The same principle applies to social security. If everyone that pays into it draws from it in retirement it will not work. The federal social security system should pay benefits just to those that need it- it isn't a savings account or a 401K plan. That system should provide just one size payment to all that need it. Work in ten different years and meet a certain earnings threshold and have a maximum annual income and savings balance and the single payment level would be yours. The problem is that those that don't need it feel they have a right to a full refund for what they paid into it thought they don't need it. If health insurance worked that way too, health insurance would probably not work either.  If Americans did not use social security without needing it the actual payments that go in to it would be lower for everyone during their working years. Other government programs could be reformed too.

Maybe the federal government should divert a portion of present social security deductions to a floating bond program at a 50-50 ratio. If people don't need a social security check they would at least get their bond value payoff.

Obamacare and Medicare for all are programs designed to convert government into a corporatist or socialist state alternatively. Each are inefficient. Just the poor should get free medical treatment provided directly by the U.S. government through and expanded V.A. system of hospital networked with community clinics for the poor. Worker's comp style references and screening would send the right patients to the right hospitals and clinics. A national network of self-driving Tesla trucks would convey patients without transport to treatment centers. With 25% of the nation that is the most poor having access to quality, free medical treatment the problems of healthcare the better off have would be left to the private sector.

A tax of 10% on the most rich 5% should be added and used directly to pay down the national public debt as soon as possible. A balanced budget amendment that reduced payments proportional to population of states should be made and used whenever budgets are unbalanced negatively more than three consecutive years, except in time of war. When the public debt soon goes over 25 trillion dollars and the interest on it consumes more and more that should cause some- even princess politicians, to feel a tinge of discomfort as if a pea were under their mattresses.

Bloomberg is Light In Democrat Presidential Race Darkness

The entry of Michael Bloomberg into the 2020 Presidential race on the Democrat side brings a light of economic rationality into the darkness of the Democrat field. Democrats are a growth of mushrooms kept in the dark and fed a lot of manure so far with the exception of Michael Bloomberg in whom the nation might have some trust that if elected he would not add piles of trillions of dollars of new public debt.

If elected the Bloomberg administration could attack the terrible problems besetting the nation like a cluster of crocodiles circling around a sinking row boat. I refer of course to the problem of large soft drinks sold in styrofoam cups that have brought American youth and even some of the elderly into terrible physical fitness.

The twenty-one twenty-three (23) trillion dollars of U.S. public debt is obviously an issue only to those that believe one must pay bills eventually. Some Republicans suggest new tax cuts to help the most rich weather the potential dark cloud/smole on the horizon. Michael Bloomberg might help with that and bring tax cuts just to the one-percent in order not to bother the rest.

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

Former Mayor Bloomberg may be inclined to sympathize not only with a ban on unhealthy food and drinks, he may consider decreasing the annual federal deficit or contributions from auto exhaust pipes in the  U.S.A. to global warming. So far he is the sole Democrat that citizens of the United States, except for anti-Semites worried about the global Zionist conspiracy to ban 64 oz. soft drinks sold in convenience stores, the citizens would have regard as relatively harmless as President of the United States. A Trump vs Bloomberg final would be interesting.

One test for Pres. Trump and Mayor Bloomberg is the Hong Kong protests and legislation to protect the protesters; would either one sign off on a bill passed by the House and Senate that supports them, or would they abstain or vote against democracy in favor of corporatism and socialism?

https://www.foxnews.com/world/hong-kong-elections-pro-democracy-candidates

President Trump Should Not Liberalize National Dopeyness Further

Many Americans under the dopey influence of the Democrat Party have urged legalization of marijuana across the nation and that is a bad idea. While dope, bread and circuses are perennial interests of the corrupt, decadence per se is bad for nations and national development. Though dope may have bad health effects on people and degrade short-term memory, and all that is popular because of sensory stimuli and pleasure associated with dope use, nations that forego decadent pleasures voluntarily tend to fare better than those that don't over the course of history.

The question legislators may have regarding the liberalization of dope is not does the constitution outlaw dopeyness so much as does it permit the congress to outlaw dope and dopeyness?

The founders could not have anticipated and made laws against every possible dopey and detrimental social behavior in the future. Good sense and good judgment of law-makers is requisite for good social results that allow business to prosper and society to increase health. Some behaviors require voluntary support or abstemiousness for moderation in law. Lawmakers need be leaders and good example rather than the lowest common denominator themselves seeking to make even lower quality laws. Life is brief and human potential to be actualized need be positively reinforced with positive laws in support of good behavioral forms. 

There are legislators that have yippee attitudes regarding age apparently. Even one Republican Florida Representative named Mike Gaetz uttered an age discrimination hate catch phrase- "O.K., Boomer" in disrespect of one aged Kelly Anne Conway's comment about the evils of dope and dope legalization. In many cases such as that of the late author James Mitchener who continued writing until the age of 90 (before he terminated his kidney dialysis in Florida and died), older generations have been very productive until very advanced age accomplishing more in their elder years than many younger people will ever accomplish in their entire lives.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/24/matt-gaetz-ok-boomer-kellyanne-conway/4292166002/

Goons full of age abuse ideas encouraged by lawmakers advocating for legal dope so schoolchildren may leave their homes with their homosexual parents cloud of dope smoke behind might be regarded as not contributing much to reinforce a productive society. Legal dope broadly available will harm society in mass with the drug permeating the core of society and second hand smoke ubiquitous. While the nation has many strengths and positive points it also has many that are detriments. Adding large scale detrimental laws to mal-effect the health of society isn't good law-making.

Excess wealth can make a society indolent and unconcerned with efficiency or balanced state and federal budgets. It might be better to look for legislation that would allow steroid accelerated muscle repair in the aged with research on how to not affect the temperament of users than to advocate dope use among the working class and teenagers. When society has the good fortune to experience prosperity it should pay off accounts like the public debt and build its moral, physical and intellectual health up rather than to tear it down.

A society should learn from the mistakes of history rather than to repeat them. A sober and determined people is more able to respond to the challenges presented to it than those dulled and stupidified with the pursuit of pleasure fore-itself encouraging working age adults to use dope and achieve minimal contributions to overcoming primary social challenges. A society should seek to avoid known decadent mass social practices rather than to encourage them. 

The world is over-populated beyond its carrying capacity presently and the many environmental problems associated with that will not be met faster with increased social dopeyness.

Eliminate Light Pollution with Night Vision Tech and Sensing Apps

Worldly insects are being destroyed by human night light pollution as well as habitat and chemical destruction. Getting rid of human built lights outside at night might not be too difficult if windshields are made into night vision devices and street lamps put out light invisible to insect yet visible to people that wear night glasses. Houses could have black-out shades as if it were the London blitz days and general navigation in the dark with excellent android phones that are given see in the dark and other apps and technology for accurate walking and sensing of objects in total darkness are prioritized. Technology can fairly easily adapt changes to restore some ecospheric health if politicians could be restored to s state of intelligent interdisciplinary ruminations themselves, as if they ever were the past 40 years.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/insect-apocalypse-light-pollution-reveal

Thanksgiving Turkeys of Impeachment Season

One should not pass over the countless hours and even months that go into preparing Holiday meals without acknowledging the chefs and their labors. The Democrat party haves presented the nation several thanksgiving turkeys to be thankful about since they will disappear through the nation’s alimentary exit. Representatives Nadler and Shiff, Speaker Pelosi and others have served specious turkeys of interpretation to the nation with sauce, relish and trimmings.

The President whom is the guest of the feast was said to have asked a foreign nation- one where the son of the prior administration’s Vice President, was given lucrative employment as a board member of a corporation in which he had no experience at all for more than a half million dollars a year. Democrats have indicated with indignation that it is an impeachable offense to ask that nation-Ukraine, to investigate crimes and corruption concerning Democrat Party leaders especially if they are running for the office of President to double down on heaping portions of foreign profits in exchange for payments from the United States government to that nation.

Democrats holding the feast have said that if a Democrat leader suspected of trading his office for cash to himself or his family is subject to investigation by the President of the United States, or a request that Ukraine investigate the Democrat leader’s suspected corruption abroad, that is an impeachable offense when the Democrat is running for office again.

The leaders of the festivities have said that the President of the United States is interfering in U.S. elections by running for re-election himself as well as asking a foreign government to investigate suspected and obvious possible corruption by one of the Democrat Presidential candidates. Apparently there are rules the Democrat Party has made behind closed doors that it is illegal or impeachable to investigate or ask foreign governments to investigate (or even have it looked into by a Grand Jury) Democrat presidential primary candidates.

No Thanksgiving celebration is complete without wild cranberry sauce. The Democrats saved some of the savory sauce with sweeteners from the 2016 election when Democrat leaders asked foreign agents to fabricate a dossier- The Steele Dossier- detailing Donald Trump’s ties to hidden Russian deals to boost his election chance.

Apparently Ukraine has become a Democrat stronghold for perfidious seasoning of Turkey stuffing. Liberal gravy is produced in dark cauldrons of dark foreign forests and in urban wasteland organs of contingency. No Thanksgiving would be complete without a sugary treat so Democrats have baked a star witness overt counterpart to the secret primary ear and sweet nothing whistle blower- one Lt. Col Vindman- born in the USSR and Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic.

Home 3-D Printing for Price Savings

I hadn't realized that 3-D printing in plastic is so cheap. One can buy a decent low-end 3-D printer for 200 to 400 dollars. Immediate applications might include do-it-yourself dentures and guns.

Presently some federal judge has ruled in favor of a temporary injunction against publishing plans for guns on the Internet. yet if one can manufacture a gun at home for $100 instead of paying $500 to a corporation it seems as if any citizen should be free to do so.

Three-D printing, solar panels, Tesla trucks and other tools to allow home energy and manufacture independence are liberating tools to enable Americans to reduce their dependence upon Wall Street for everything as if it was the company store and the only one available for anything.

3-D dentures for home production would be simple to manufacture. One should first have a model medium to bite with gums and remaining teeth that will remain pliable for a hour or two. One should scan the model into an on-line plan site that would match the right size plan for the bite. The 3-D printed gums would have notches to set the teeth in (a pack of denture teeth being ordered on-line from Amazon or e-bay)

Then the 3D printer would print out the permanent gums into which manufactured teeth would be set by the home producer when it is finished. Special glue would be used to fix the teeth into the gums. Lastly a special self-hardening clay-like substance would be placed into the hard gums and the dentures place into the mouth were the clay-like substance would conform to the natural contour of the gums of the wearer. Excess would be cut off. The the substance would be allowed to harden (or remain partially soft if the wearer wants a soft liner).

There may be thousands of easy to produce at home items for 3-D printing. Maybe there should be numerous 3-D printing outlets at retailers and on-line stores.

The Future Disintegration of Family Structure with Democrat Agenda in Evo Maladaptation

The late economist Lester Thurow of M.I.T., born in Livingston Montana, mentioned in one of his books in the 1990s that the traditional social structure wasn't working and needed to change. I suppose he thought that there are too many people consuming too much of the ecosystem destructively and producing too much eco-waste including greenhouse gases. His comment was perhaps a leading indicator of the deep Harvard-New England elite's wish to destroy traditional social structures including families led by middle class white males that stand as an obstacle to a master plan based on elite management of society that would conserve and concentrate wealth for the richest and convert the rest of humanity into malleable jellyfish without ideas about personal properties of rights and material.

Dangerous Currents by Lester Thurow

There are several elements of the Democrat Party and elite agenda that would support the disintegration of families with replacement by common mass public themes. Abortion, legalized dope, homosexual expropriation of marriage, the bread and circuses environment of televised pro sports, promotion of atheism, tax cuts to low, low settings on the rich, open borders with constant influx of non-college graduates that work for low wages illegally, propagation of vast public debt, globalism, mass media propaganda in support of what were traditionally regarded as immoral sex norms and family values etc. Democrat Party Presidential primary planks such as Medicare for everyone at a cost of 52 trillion dollars and other forms of incompetent socialism-corporatism also reinforce the social vector toward a mass social environment of individual citizens with a primary I-Thou relation of the individual to the mass social zeitgeist that would be reflected in nearly all, ideally. Socially autonomous individuals would be reliant on mass social structures rather than families and would have no interest in creating a family unit as dope and promiscuity with a cornucopia of technical and medical entertainment pleasures along with a certain level of prosperity providing more important diversions suitable for a neo-narcissistic society.


In is interesting that development politically toward the disintegration of social structures and conventional social boundaries that protected individuals fundamentally are the new Democrat Party agenda. Yet reliance upon a vast average social conversion of citizens with traditional self interests to the new amoral social sardine beyond good and evil for adaptation to the limits of the natural environment's carrying capacity seems wrong to me. It is not only wrong, it is inefficient compared to a democracy led by enlightened individuals who recognize traditional American values including the free enterprise economy, Christianity, liberty, free speech, the right to 3D print weapons and heterosexual marriage etc.

Democracy is just a tool for the use of the citizens of a nation. It can be administered with good or bad results depending upon the quality and skill of the leaders it selects through votes to lead it. The United States has had poor leadership either unresponsive or reacting with corruption of society to the primary challenges to national and world existence. One might almost say that Dwight Eisenhower was the last President to serve a full term that was up to speed on ecospheric challenges as science provides knowledge of.

Environmental economics is now an academic discipline and its comprehensive implementation for the U.S.A. would require a complete reformation of social and legal principles led by government. That simply isn't on the agenda. The tension between the Democrat and elite destroy all traditional values agenda as a way to respond to ecosphere challenges undercuts the possibility of an enlightened response of Democracy to the ecospheric challenges of wilderness loss, overpopulation, species extirpation and global warming. That is the sad fact.

The U.S.A. thus faces a gross political deformity of good policy with Democrats trying to destroy traditional society in order to benefit and fulfill the elite, scientific view of humans and too many biological consumers of ecosphere health and Republicans that with social populism along more traditional lines tend to ignore ecosphere challenges as an externality. With democracy being the best tool when properly led, the political milieu of converting it to socialism or coporatism and secularizing the society to the point of socialized prole citizenry is antipathetic.

It would seem that the non-reproducing atheist amoeba idealized by the elites would produce a good chance of mass social culling of the herd when the conversion goes far enough. At that point the proles might not even care.

Humanity may not be up to long-term living in micro-gravity. The evolutionary challenge may be too great, and artificial gravity is tough to engineer even with spinning centrifugal force functioning space platforms. Humans will need to live on Earth-like gravity environments or in a few generations people may become as extinct as dinosaurs that weren't up to a quick evolutionary challenge. 

Humanity will need to live on the Earth quite a while as bugs are worked out to the entire evolutionary challenge of environments with less than Earth-normal gravity. That means a sustainable world economy that won't just deplete all resources in the next couple of centuries needs to be adapted. Not even the new Tesla pickup truck that is all electric and goes zero to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds that is a positive factor can fill the need for a complete reform of the world economy along ecological economic principles.

Constructing large space platforms that spin to create a semblance of gravity might not work too well to compensate for the radical changes in G field strength humans would experience in space with travel through micro-gravity. That is, evolutionary structures built over millions of years in a constant gravitational field are not at all similar to temporal changes from G-Earth to micro-gravity. If one considers Newton's spinning bucket thought experiment comparable to a spinning space station with humans installed in it the paradigm of maintaining a constant gravitational field strength equal to Earth at all locations on the space platform with centrifugal force becomes a brain-sloshing thought experiment itself.

Even the idea of using human hibernation while travelling decades to other stars with planets seems dangerous in light of gravity. Without the Earth's gravity space travelers will not experience an up and down that the human physiology was evolved in. Unless a space traveler is virtually frozen solid so fluids and molecules cannot disorient to Earth's up/down field real damage to the human travelers may develop.

Lt. Col Vindman-Star Impeachment Witness- Was Born in Soviet Union

There is a certain humor in the Democrat Party's star impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Semyon Vindman being born in the Soviet Union. He was actually born in the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic and emigrated at the age of three with his parents.

After years of Democrat Party efforts to prove that President Trump had hidden Russian connections that helped win the 2016 election, they have brought forward a hidden whistle blower and a star witness born in the Soviet Union and Ukraine (where he may still have relatives). The irony couldn't have been designed by anyone besides a sitcom comedy writer.

Besides humor there could be a certain conflict of interest in his antipathy for any Presidential policy change toward the Ukraine or Russia. It is also possibly wrong for a President to not investigate high level U.S. politicians from Washington D.C. that may have worked corruption abroad, including Ukraine.

President Trump had a right and a duty to discover what influence the Obama administration was actually having in the Ukraine. That was in the interests of the people of the United States. Why for example, would the Vice-President's completely unqualified son be giving fifty to eighty-six thousands dollars per month for being on the board of a Ukrainian business?

Lt. Col. Vindman, quite possibly still a citizen of Ukraine, apparently felt that the best U.S. policy was hostility to Russia and military support for the Obama era policies of protracted conflict in eastern Ukraine. 

A better policy in my opinion would have been to let Russia and Ukraine share a common Eastern border on the Dnepr River so the Russian would not feel swindled by Clinton era policies of snatch and grab former what were Russian ancestral lands for hundreds of years that had been part of the former Soviet Union. Peaceful and mutually prosperous relations with the new Russia, rather than protracted coldish war and military build up is in the interest of the United States. Driving Russia to the old cold war era relationship with China isn't in the interest of the United States. That policy is one for idiots that discount the danger of nuclear conflict.

Pentagon people should be designing some kind of a better helicopter for delivering people to hot zones that can deflect a few bullets and rockets and are quiet instead of looking for ways to restart the Cold War.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oKMjTqdTYo

Alaska Dropping the Ball on Ferry Service Connections

The Alaska Ferry system has been much criticized for being slow, costly and of value more for tourists than residents. Spartan boats without kitchens and staterooms would be cheaper to keep in business, yet they don't much exist on S.E. routes. The ferry service to the road system from isolated Alexander Archipelago locations has been interrupted and is nearly stopped as far as Prince Rupert goes.

There are three basic regions of ferry service in Alaska that presently work plus Prince Rupert. Some day there may be a boat on Alaska's east and north coast or the Yukon, yet not for now. It is a mistake to regard the three regions as just one system; for each have different weather, water, time and demographic needs.

There is a value in government providing certain transportation corridors in areas with ecosystem conservation requisites in order to forestall crass, destructive, invasive road construction detrimental to the cohesion of life on Earth.

Wouldn't a no frills ferry working between Prince Rupert and Ketchikan be a more efficient water service that would be affordable to the state? With twice weekly service on a boat without staterooms or food service with a ferry marshal aboard paid for by Canadian and U.S. Governments passengers and goods could resume a normal flow. Maybe a private inter-island ferry to Angoon from Wrangell or Petersburg could be given some kind of subsidy to make the trip to connect with the Alaska Marine highway service to Wrangell or Petersburg and Juneau. Some kind of coordination should exist between governments to connect private boats with government routes around the North Pacific coast. Certainly there are lots of opportunities for all kinds of travelers and operators.

If the ferry system doesn't work for bring cars and cargo to S.E. Alaska people will start looking for the Bradfield Road project to resume that would let Canadians and others drive to Wrangell Alaska that would become the new Prince Rupert- and that would be an environmental disaster. I encourage government designers of efficient public works to look for creation of a very fast and cheap boat to let goods and electric cars travel from Prince Rupert to Wrangell. The fast cheap spartan boat should have electric charging for electric cars aboard, and S.E. Alaska communities should also establish EV charging stations or outlets for travelers with sensible electric cars.

Pres. Trump Should Let Republicans Question Him at Impeachment Hearing

Since the impeachment hearing in the House isn't just a partisan way to overcome President Trump's 2016 election victory after all else has failed the President should agree to let Republican House members question him at the hearing. That would avoid any potential partisan conflict of interest speeches, diatribes, tricks and traps from Democrats grandstanding for the camera and voters.

Republicans could provide five members of the House to ask questions about the President's phone calls with the President of Ukraine. They should discover if there were elements of ad astra per aspera that would influence the course of Ukraine conflict with Russia, internal corruption and influence of the Bidens and other Democrats in stimulating conflict that if solved would make conflict over Dnepr regions moot.

Democrats should be happy to have their Republican brothers and sisters handle the dirty work of uncovering Obama era policies and corruption that brought the Ukraine conflict dulce periculum to be the normative condition.

A Note on the Linguistic Philosophy and Empiricism Lines

Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the epistemological work 'On Certainty' as well as the Blue and Brown books are interesting. Russell got Wittgenstein a PhD and position at Cambridge where he worked on linguistic philosophy. I like Sartre's work quite a bit more, and that of W.V.O. Quine and P.F. Strawson too concerning epistemology. In the tradition of linguistic philosophy Wittgenstein definitely has a place, yet it moves on and the work of Saul Kripke for example, with his most famous work; 'Naming and Necessity' is original work. Harvard wouldn't give him a PhD because there was no one competent to evaluate his work at the time- he was that original. Quine's work is similar though in some respects and Kripke was familiar with Quine's work in the discussion and realism vs nominalism. Quine and Strawson are quite good for bringing epistemological insights forward from empiricism in the field of the philosophy of logic. The technical approach reminds me a lot of Kant's try at epistemology with the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (a condensed version of the Critique of Pure Reason).

This is a different philosophical line of a few philosophical writers that wrote within a century of one another...

I took a course on Kierkegaard and Socratic Irony that was quite good after I had read Stages in Life's Way, Fear and Trembling, The Sickness Unto Death, etc. I have read Nietzsche's collected works and didn't find anything in them even vaguely like Sartre's works- not even his aphorisms, and Camus' works like The Plague, and The Stranger. I.M.O. they don't begin to approach even remotely the technical rigor of Sartre as he continued French rationalism. Being and Nothingness and The Critique of Dialectical Reason are nothing like the works of the above authors you have mentioned. Camus' The Plague is a good novel, yet Camus was a fiction writer perhaps comparable to Dostoyevsky more appropriately than Sartre who was a professional philosopher as well as a fine writer of novels, plays and short stories- he won a Nobel prize in Literature for that, yet turned that down like so many others before him- l.o.l.

Democrat's Queer Core Floats Buttigieg in Iowa Race

South Bend Indiana's homosexual Mayor Pete Buttigieg is leading the Democrat Presidential race in Iowa not only because the other candidates are socialist-communists or financially crazy seeking to add trillions and trillions of dollars of public debt for inefficient services for the middle class, he also has the core support of homosexuals.

Pete Buttigieg if elected would degrade pr of the United States rather substantially with homo-coupling in the White House. Some voters would tune out even more than they did with Hillary. Voters cannot be certain if he is the butch or the feminine queer buddy, yet they can be certain that he is an Oxford creature. It is remarkable that a superficial moderate with queer British training could rise to become the front runner simple because the remainder of the candidates are unthinkably lame. For the British to calculate the rise of queers running for the U.S. Presidency shows the skill of the Oxford selection committee in recognize the gullibility of the masses of Democrat voters. Rhodes scholars are selected to advance British interests abroad.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/us/politics/iowa-poll-democrats.html

One might think Democrats would have a clue about running competent candidates; even Donna Brazil would be an improvement over the usual suspects.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/11/18/20970604/amazon-rainforest-2019-brazil-burning-deforestation-bolsonaro

Concerning Truth

Something about truth. There are a lot of truth theories in the field of philosophy. They tend to apply to language and words denoting an accurate relationship about a proposition. Correspondence and disquotation theories are examples, with a proposition or statement about the existence or non-existence of something being accurate.

Classic syllogistic logic with premises adding up to a conclusion has forms, the forms of syllogism predetermine the possibility of their premises being true. Of 256 possible forms of syllogism just 24 or valid. With a proposition such as "that ball dropped from the roof will bounce" can be verified with observation. Verification theory of truth is another truth theory based on words about observations. Christians tend to say that Jesus Christ is truth, in-itself because God is the source of all things. If one misses the mark of a right relationship with God one is said to have sinned (that means missing the mark in archery). 

There are other beliefs about truth that are interesting including use-truth that Jean Paul Sartre described. A colonial majority may have words and ideas describing others that are not of the insider group in a particular pejorative way, and for them those descriptions are true, though for other, perhaps false. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

Self-Identity and Memory

Memories continue as does the experience of self throughout life. Investment in mind content continues for life without injury to the brain, too much dope, brainwashing etc.. People that are old remember youth and the books they read in many cases- they are the same people as they were with new ideas added. Biologically speaking the body is said to replace itself every seven years. That is life. One may replace much thought content with new information- it is necessary to set aside previous thought in order to make space for new thought in consciousness, yet the subconscious keeps most of it. If one needs some knowledge that was learned yet is isn't immediately present to thought, the mind summons the knowledge as if it were a file clerk and eventually delivers the knowledge to self-awareness.

Scientists have discovered that some brain cells continue to grow. I will see if I can find an article on that. Nothing lasts forever though (in the mortal coil). https://www.verywellmind.com/adult-neurogenesis-can-we-grow-new-brain-cells-2794885

If most of the cells remain the same that would tend to support the self-identity continuity premise more than not. In that article the part of the brain with continuing cell renewal was an area that has memory. Humans were not made to live forever in the material world except as a species perhaps...the entire species is a biological form morphing forward.

I of course believe that God can set evolution as the active thermodynamic principle of apparent Universe (1) in which humanity exists, and that the book of Genesis can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with that. Adam and Eve for example, lived in Eden without space-time thermodynamics and were reduced to one with birth, death and work as a containment measure to prevent them from eating of the tree of life in addition to the tree of knowledge.

Whale brains are far larger than human brains. The size of the axons and neurons are larger and farther apart with thicker connections so they work somewhat slower. I would guess the complexity of making a planet like Earth would be more complex than a human being. It requires a Universe, gravitational fields, mass energy, much time, formation of galaxies from particles and so forth. Modeling the weather is complex and is accurately reliable just 10 days or so. Actually constructing an Earth wouldn't be easy, and humans are part of the Earth system. It was reported recently that long-term living in space has caused some astronauts to have blood clots and for some arterial blood to flow backwards. Without Earth-specific gravity so much of a human body becomes physically disoriented. Eating food high and dropping processed food low simply follows the gravity vector. In space itself maybe a blob shape would be best with blood flowing in circles. It is complex to speculate about that accurately. The Unified field and the steady state of decohered mass from it and the way humans exist in it is a very complex system except maybe for God who knows everything a priori.

George Washington was Against Political Parties and Factions

 There is a reasonably good explanation of Washington's advice about factions and political parties being divisive and repressive at wiki. Washington worked for union rather than division so he was of course against 'alternate despotism' of parties that lead to permanent despotism. He said governments have tried to repress parties and felt it was a good idea. Factions also were bad in his opinion as the nation needed to stand together then against foreign enemies. Washington was right on most political ideas being a realist.

Apparently two parties had arisen in his day; one supported France and the other wanted to align with Britain during the French revolution. Royals all over Europe worried about the French example. Factions allied with external cohorts were dangerous. One sees Democrats aligning today with foreign interests in Ukraine and Latin America regarding war and illegal immigration of an external proletariat with quite a divide of opinion about building a border security wall. Republicans tend to have an opposite opinion regarding a Mexican and beyond external proletariat that might work a creeping annexation if they weren’t stopped. The two parties are also factions.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Benjamin Franklin

Washington also thought parties and factions tended to alienate themselves from the people. He was concerned about some strong individual or even dictator or monarch arising and the nation had spent a lot on revolting against that. Washington himself voluntarily limited any movement that would make a king of himself. Some elites tend to support rule by elites or even just one and Washington was the nation’s defender fighting and advising in support of republican populism.

G.W. had republican Rome as an example that morphed into an imperial empire with Caesar at the top. Today the rich plutocrats and the Congress are too closely aligned. Many Americans don't feel too well represented in Congress. Washington also warned about the military industrial complex becoming too powerful like Eisenhower had (just the military part though because industry didn't exist in the same way in the late 18th century). Americans pay  too little attention to George Washington's common sense these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell_Address

Could a Particle Beam or Magnetic Field on the Moon Draw in Spacecraft

Would it be possible to power some kind of a particle beam or magnetic field on the moon to draw in spacecraft to a landing zone? If solar power were stored in superconducting loops at select very low lunar temperature locations the electricity might power some kind of a directed field to draw in appropriately designed spacecraft quicker and more accurately with less on-board fuel.  

Maybe Lagrange Points one and two could have large field generators for relaying energy to attract and repel spacecraft within the Earth-Moon system as well as beam or field generators on Earth and in orbit above the Earth.

Creative Construction and Destruction of Utopia

The creative destruction and reconstruction of Utopias is a work in progress. Dostoyevski's Notes from the Underground is an interesting book yet not at all one where one should find anything Utopian. It is a story about the lowest level Russian government worker, terribly poor, living in the cold of winter St. Petersburg in a basement lodging with the aspiration to have a great coat, a warm one, for the winter. It is a dark and somewhat melancholy novel if I remember it correctly. Nikoli Gogol also wrote a story named The Overcoat. Since it has been quite a well since I read either I may conflate some elements. Maybe it would be Utopian to combine the two stories. 

Moore's Utopia is quite different. Thomas Moore is an interesting historical figure and wrote Utopia where the streets were paved with gold. In Anchorage Alaska a mayor once heated some of the city sidewalks. I wish they would do that with a particular bike path over a freeway in Montana (the d_mn snowploughs throw the car path snow onto the bike path destroying the Utopia of it all).

  Sure its possible to build a human society where no one is physically experiencing privation. The best way to accomplish that is with democracy and free enterprise suitably configured with a balanced budget and no public debt. It is a temporal state of being though. The most difficult part would be to make it last forever, as it will with God in heaven. On Earth it is a problem because everything can always be improved, there are emergent external challenges and change is needed to upgrade. The American dream society aspires toward utopia with comfortable large homes, shag carpets, giant TVs, SUVs and video games that go on forever, pollution doesn't matter and global warming is a hoax. While a non-changing temporal society would probably be stagnant and trend toward dystopianism, it is fun to imagine the middle Earth Camelot that never ends with JFK and Jackie enjoying convertible rides that continue until the rivers run dry and the sun turns into a Cheshire cat, in greater bliss. Alternatively some might regard some economic progress as inherently dystopian because it destroys wilderness and wildlife that are aesthetically beautiful products of God's creative work for-themselves.

About the Stall of Ecological Reform Progress

Ordinary people don't have the time to follow science enough to think for themselves on science matters. They trust in employment and paying for things like 30-year mortgages. Even those in power on Wall Street need to conform their thought toward corporate goals Aristotle noted the problem of the commons being very poorly cared for in The Politics. Democrats are more corrupt than the conservatives in that they exploit environmental causes for other purposes such as socialism, racism etc. Democrats like to force everything their way these days and that may be a result of the influence of the late Senator Ted Kennedy and his brain cancer. 

Large scale ecological economic reform requires a great deal of engineered change to implement and few in politics even have an idea of what that is. Because the Democrat Party does not seek to find a way to get things done politically with the informed consent of the governed, Democrats keep the public debated between choosing socialism and capitalism, Ecospheric policies are given short shrift and hardly discussed in depth in a solid way publicly. If there are 1001 ways to reform capitalism and free enterprise to better serve the people of the United States, Democrats will try to force through just one expensive and likely ineffective plan without concern for the economic side-effects to the workers. They expect to force it on the nation. Remember Speaker Pelosi on Obamacare when asked about what it was;she said; 'Just pass it into law so we can find out what's in it.'

Wall Street Gamers Should Have Anti-Monopoly Laws

Democracy and free enterprise are strong when creative intelligent people develop new ideas and produce more efficient businesses. In the 19th and most of the 20th centuries Wall Street telecommunications largely did not exist with a fration of the computing and networking power of the present. It wasn’t possible for financial players to game the system the way they do presently with concentrated wealth able to trade at the speed of light and network wealth and capital. It wasn’t so practical for the most rich to have a finger in every pie, every business on the exchange. Anti-monopoly legislation was necessary to keep competition alive and not let the most rich own everything as if they were the company store selling product to captive workers.

In the 21^st century the nature of business has changed at a basic level with the financial sector and concentrated wealth able to buy and control elements of everything, and that made especially easy with chain stores and outlets across the nation. It is possible for the most rich to effectively build a monopoly through Wall Street shared with fewer than 1% of Americans. Every financial exchange trickles up to them. Wall Street trading should itself have some anti-monopoly laws that would limit the number of corporations any individual or corporation could invest in to some reasonable number such as three or four.

Free enterprise should encourage people to invent and establish new and improved businesses for-themselves rather than to create a manipulative class of financial players skimming the profits from everyone’s corporations. Those corporations are themselves brought to dominate the market, while new rival start up businesses would tend to be established only as far as they reinforce or support the existing businesses.

Because the system isn’t yet 100% complete in a plutocratic-corporatist structure it is challenging for some citizens to notice or understand the malevolution. They still believe that it is all free enterprise and therefore good, and the sole problem is socialism. Socialism is mainly a problem in diverting political thought from the question of how to make democracy best serve the citizens of the United States to a choice between socialism and undifferentiated free enterprise. Democracy and free enterprise have much more nuanced than that, and keeping free enterprise free from plutocratic, networked monopoly is one. Wealth should be encouraged to create new businesses and ideas rather than to buy up everything that already exists. Anti-financial monopoly laws can help with that.

Should the Army use Small Drone Gliders for Paratroopers?

The Army might benefit tactically from developing planeloads of small drone skydiving gliders for paratroopers to launch into the wild blue yonder on targets from a distance. The glider could carry the gear and the soldier still wear a parachute. If the drone had g.p.s. program glide controls to take the package to the right landing spot some time and distance in reaching a target safely and at night might be accomplished.

Tax the Richest 500 Americans to Pay off Public Debt?

Would a 60% income tax on the richest 5000 Americans dedicated to pay off public debt help roll back encroaching networked plutocracy and eliminate the nearly trillion dollar a year interest payment on public debt that goes to the rich holding the debt?

Aristotle commented 2500 years ago that democracies evolve into tyranny because of the general publlic neglect of common areas (including politics). Socrates and Plato were supporters of oligarchy and against democracy. The philosophy of government is a perennial philosophical issue. For example, some actually conflate socialism with tax rates in democracy, and that should be disambiguated. There are numerous other problems of a philosophical nature regarding government and political economy that should be clarified for citizens.

Democracy requires defense against oligarchy and plutocracy as well as communism and fascism. Aristotle in The Politics noted that democracies transition, because of public neglect of public affairs, into tyranny. Nothing has really changed in the past 2500 years. The rich of course always have a surfeit of unphilosophical lap-dog suck-ups hoping for promotion. If the Democrats are butt-kissers enough they may run Mayor Buttigeige, the Oxford creature, for President in 2020 to petify the populace.

There are several books written on corporatism including The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul (a Canadian philosopher). The revolutionaries in France in 1789 had no trouble recognizing the concentration of wealth.

https://www.amazon.com/Unconscious.../dp/0684871084

Would the rich take their money and run? That is an interesting technical issue. making the United States more nationalistic rather than economically global might make it more difficult to relocate capital to Communist China and other countries where the rich invest. yet they are welcome to go and take their booty with them. South America has perhaps 30 of the top 50 cities in homicide rate so in some respects that might not be a desirable relocation sight. Africa might look good to the rich, yet it would probably be Asia and Europe where the Waltons, Gates, Bezos et al would look. If they were gone with there wealth I a confident that the U.S. has a few million entrepreneurs of high intellect that could replace them. The U.S. economy has a lot of social media billionaires that have really superfluous topics. I grew up before pc's existed so I look at the kind of capital that is valuable somewhat differently. Windows or navigator (extinct)- there are always alternative to fill the economic niches in the tangled bank of enterprise.

People that haven't much understanding of political theory associate every sort of responsible management suggestion for democracy as leftist.. I actually was an Army reservist during the cold war era when it ended, and find the smear quite offensive. I also spent the better part of my life from adulthood reading philosophy and history. Far too many Americans, especially youth, are post-cold war era babies without any historical awareness of government before communism and the century of leftist upsurge. That blindness renders them entirely incompetent about being responsible for the maintenance of a healthy democratic society, including taxation. They quit thinking at a point most suitable for doing nothing to defend democracy and help concentrate wealth and networked power as if plutocracy was healthy. I remember visiting Berlin in 1987 and throwing a handful of glittering coins along the a street at night watching them glitter under the streetlights. The next year the International Monetary Fund met there, and a couple of years later the Soviet forces withdrew from East Germany. As an older student and reservist I found the entire situation of a divided Germany and war with the Soviets somewhat unnecessary. As glad as I was when the Cold War ended, I have been disappointed by the irrational exuberance that has led to 21 trillion dollars of public debt created by republicans and Democrats, and the concentration of wealth that is like a black hole drawing in all capital into itself. When the U.S. Government issues those zero interest loans to banks and the banks with the free federal dollars can electronically mint 5x more dollars for each dollar loaned by the Federal Government that creates free money out of nothing; real dollars are repaid on loans the bank makes with its free money. The U.S. Government has been giving free trillions of dollars to Wall Street since 2008, and even when the interest rate is nominal it is still a vast sum of free money to the already rich. That is a corrupt plutocratic insider, wicked situation that should change. It is not any sort of economic justice or equality, and definitely not democracy.

Democrats Have Reversed Watergate Impeachment Order for Pres Trump

In the Watergate impeachment proceedings the Democrats and others followed up a tangible crime (burglary) and followed the leads to the White House and President Nixon. The prime perpetrator's identity was unknown and that what was eventually discovered. democrats have reversed that order in the 2019 impeachment machination.

For President Trump there was no crime to start the proceedings. Instead there was an anonymous to Republicans informer who contacted whistle-blowing investigators in the Justice department about a fairly public phone call between the U.S. and Ukrainian Presidents. The anonymous informant believed the phone call contained an unethical request from the President (to have the Ukraine investigate potential financial crimes by the son of former Vice-President Biden in Ukraine). The effort for Republicans and the President is to discover who the anonymous informant is and learn about his relationship with the lead Congressional impeachment quarterback for the Democrat Party. The challenge for the Democrats is to show that the phone request was so unethical that the President deserves to be impeached. 

Why should the Bidens get a free pass to interfere in Ukraine, get employment for family members and the President an impeachment hearing for merely asking about that?

Many people feel a President has a right to ask for items he feels useful from foreign powers he is giving free money or weapons to. That is even if there was a quid pro quo, there is nothing wrong with that. Instead people might wonder what right a President has to give free taxpayer financed items away to foreign powers, including military aid. In business generally people expect something in return for payments. 

For example, maybe they buy a cheap spy camera from China in order to photograph deer on the trail; they expect it to work in exchange for the money and if it doesn't they are unhappy. Since Democrats were so rude and aggressive trying to have a Special Investigator find crimes and Russian collusion between the President and Moscow/Von Putin, it was quite reasonable for the President to reciprocate in a small way after the end of the failed Special Investigation with a request to the President that they investigate Hunter Biden's relationship as a highly paid board member of some odd Ukrainian business in a field that Hunter Biden had no experience in; that appeared to be some kind of well-paid quid pro quo for possible favors from the Obama administration of support for various Ukrainian people and policies.

Democrats have tried to game the impeachment proceedings withholding the identity of informers and of their relationship to the impeachment leader, not allowing Republicans to question witnesses, and keeping everything secret except for Democrat approved leaks. Recently the impeachment proceedings have gone public yet the system is still gamed heavily in favor of democrat, pejorative hate of the President.

democrats have sought to force politics since the Obama administration to their own goals without any Republican cooperation. That led to the present impeachment proceedings that try to force the President from office before the 2020 election. If it is possible for force anything Democrats now seek to do so. That methodology will not be able to reform the economy to ecological economics. 

Another problem with force politics is that the items that are forced through are the worst that might be designed...no one forces car designs through automakers with designs made in secret by one guy without input or criticism from others in the company. That method produces hybrid edsel-zils with square wheels.

For example it might be a good idea to tax the rich and provide capital to Americans without any. If 50 million Americans with no capital had some annually there probably would be some that are brilliant and would invent new things. They might buy math and science books etc. Fifty million people might have more geniuses and brilliant people denied for economic reasons that the 1000 wealthy people that are already sated, stuffed and simply network to have everything on Wall Street their way. If Democrats could actually tax and redistribute to the poor it is certain they would find some spoilt and inefficient way of spending the money. If there are 1000 ways to redistribute capital the Democrats would find one of the worst ones and keep it secret until it became law and people could find out what was in the legislation.