Earlier today I saw a Saturday Night Live skit mocking the idea of building a settlement on the moon.  I don’t like Newt Gingrich, but when he spoke of building a moon colony, I was proud that a popular leader was trying to inspire people to think about space again.  To dream.  We as a nation used to dream of exploring the cosmos and was dedicated to funding its exploration.  We believed in ourselves, our scientists, and we took pride that we’d be the first to accomplish such a great feat.  We used to have great presidents like JFK.  You mention his name and he’s unanimously praised, and rightly so.  He was a great man.  A great president.  But you know what?  He wanted to go to the moon.  He wanted us to explore space.  Have you ever seen his 1962 speech?  I rarely hear words that inspire me, but his do.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard.  Because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

- John F. Kennedy, in a speech to Rice University, Sept 12, 1962

Mock me if you want to.  When Newt mentioned space, it made me happy.  I saw a glimmer of a leader trying to inspire us again, even if just a little.  Listen to the crowd when JFK exclaims, “We choose to go to the moon…”   They burst into applause and cheers.  He has to stop and wait for them to quiet down.  That was America in the 1960s.  Now look at us.  We as a nation sit back with our arms crossed and give derisive looks to anyone who mentions the idea.  What happened?

I haven’t done a lot of research into what happened with NASA and the space program after our initial voyages to the moon.  All I know is we’ve completely lost faith in all of it.  I’ll have to search Amazon.com for a book on the history of the space program, and find out what all has happened, and what went wrong.

If you’ve been following the news, one of the front-runner candidates for president is Newt Gingrich.  Looking at the Republican candidates, I’m pretty much universally disgusted.  I’ve watched the debates and sat in abhorrence as the crowd cheered on bizarre, inhumane ideas.  They roared in applause at the mention of Rick Perry’s record number of executions during his administration as governor of Texas.  When Ron Paul told them that attacking other nations that have done nothing to us violates the golden rule, the entire hall boo’d and roared in disgust.  At another time, I think it was Wolf Blitzer, asked Ron Paul what he would do if a 20~30 year old needed medical attention yet lacked health insurance at the time.  Would he let him die? Paul basically replied, “In a society with personal responsibility…” and the crowd cheered ecstatically.  Though he basically avoided the question, he doesn’t seem to feel there’s anything wrong with saddling that young man in $50,000 of debt, or if he can’t afford it, and the hospital won’t finance it, just letting him die.  He thinks that some charity organization will always be there.  I seriously doubt it, and should we really play around with people’s lives like that?  It’s disgusting.  The crowd boo’d hysterically when Rick Perry mentioned that he was proud that he’d taken measures to help educate illegals who had come into Texas from Mexico.  Oh, and on the most recent debate, the moderator brought up the issue of Newt having abandoned his sick wives (yes, he’s left two different wives on different occasions when they were sick and in the way), Newt basically responded with, “For you to bring up the issue of my past wives in a presidential debate is despicable.”  And the crowd roars in applause!  What happened to the family values they’re supposed to stand for?  Don’t half of them vote solely on ethical issues?  The only thing that seems to unite the current conservative base is the deep desire to start another war in Iran.

I don’t understand mainstream conservatives at all.  They talk about Jesus, the Bible and “family values”, but then at the same time could care less about Newt and his past affairs.  That’s an attack from the lamesteam “liberal” media.  It’s pretty ingenious how conservative politicians play that made up narrative to their advantage.

Or take universal healthcare.  They hold up their Bibles, but in that same book Jesus taught that if you find a sick man along the roadside, put him up in an inn and leave the innkeeper with money to take care of him until he recovers.  But when the issue comes up, it’s the evangelicals who are up in an uproar.  ”It’s a government takeover of healthcare!”  What?  And half of them are old people on Medicare, which they all universally love!   Sometimes I just don’t know.

And Rick Perry, the family man.  How could these people cheer on executions?  Jesus taught to forgive your enemies, pray for those who have done evil to you, and to turn the other cheek.  Jesus died for others; he never called for execution.

Regardless of what you think of Christianity and its teachings, it just disgusts me is how these people run around with crosses and Bibles, decrying everyone else as heathens, and wanting prayer in schools, yet haven’t even read the book they want to cram down our throats.  They cheer for wars. If Jesus was a presidential candidate, they’d boo him off the stage. Jesus and Christianity are just crude bumper stickers they attach to.  Tribal “logo” decals these people put on themselves.  It’s like the American flag.  To appeal to this crowd, you just need to understand a few buzzwords.  You talk about freedom, the red, white, and blue, and finally, mention that you pray to Jesus and look up to Ronald Reagan.  But don’t think too hard about it, because if you do, it won’t make any sense at all.  Ronald Reagan was all about free-markets, and their other supposed master, Jesus, was a communist.  After all, Christ’s apostles formed a completely communist society where everything was owned in common, and nobody had personal property.  Didn’t Jesus send his apostles out to preach his message, and not demand any financial compensation in return?  But who has actually read the four Gospels, or book of the Acts of the Apostles these days?

I say all of this to point out the sheer stupidity of what goes on in these debates.

It’s painful to support any of the candidates that are out there today.  I don’t like any of them.  So I actually came out and reluctantly supported Ron Paul.  But don’t get me wrong, I don’t like him much either.  I do admire his consistency.  The others?  Well, all I’ll say about Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry is that I’m glad they’ve dropped out.  Mitt Romney, I have no idea what he even stands for.  I don’t trust a word out of his mouth.  I at least know Ron Paul believes what he says, and will respect personal liberty.  After seeing signs of Big Brother emerging here within the United States, and our civil liberties being trampled on, I don’t have much faith in President Obama.  Anyone who could throw a person in jail indefinitely, without a trial, will never have my vote.  I HATE Guantanamo Bay.  Everytime I hear that place is still in existence, I grit my teeth in anger.  People being locked up without a trial, indefinitely, it’s just against everything I stand for and believe in.  It’s pure evil.  Worthless wars, erosion of liberties, huge debts and deficits.  I want it all to end.  I hate seeing these SOPA bills and PIPA, and I want a president who would veto that shit into the trashcan.  Ron Paul would veto all of them for sure.

So as I was out for a walk the other day, I just was thinking, “I can’t find any redeeming quality in any of these people other than Ron Paul.”  I look at them all and they come up lacking.   But even with Ron Paul, I just cringe at the thought of him cutting foreign aid, cutting the National Science Foundation funding, completely privatizing everything he can get his hands on.  The list of things me and him disagree with on is large.

I’m not a socialist, and I’m not a free market libertarian.  I’m someplace inbetween, wanting compassion in our society yet at the same time still desiring a large degree of personal responsibility, transparency, and efficiency.  It just seems possible that we can have a society where we get the benefits of corporations and our collective working power, without brutally exploiting one another in abhorrent working conditions (like the Chinese factories I’ve been talking about), without insane wealth disparities, without people going broke if they come down with a medical condition, and a commitment that everyone deserves a shot at a decent life.  People need access to the skills and training required to work in today’s information economy.  If that means funding their college education, then so be it.  I don’t want to get into the university system though.  Costs are skyrocketing, and there’s a lot of things that need to be done there too.

My main desire is to see an educated society which respects and funds science research.  It’s what drives progress.  Cures for diseases, new forms of transportation, new forms of innovative manufacturing, and so on.  Reading over the history of science and progress inspires me.  I’d like to help be a part of that progressive trend of improvement.  That’s mainly why I’ve chosen to be a physicist.  I want to build things which improve our lives.  I want to build AI systems which can drive cars, construct new robotic arms using nanotechnology, or write the code running our future virtual reality systems.   Maybe even more than any of those things, I want to see space exploration.  There’s an entire universe out there.  I’ve always wondered why nobody ever has a vision to explore space.  I guess they feel our society’s resources could be better used elsewhere, and I can understand that, but I also feel our generation needs a vision.  Something to be proud of.  All I hear about is decline, decline, and decline.  I get tired of it.

But my mouth dropped when I actually heard a presidential candidate wanting to do something truly daring and exciting.  The media has been deriding Newt Gingrich about his commitment to building a moon base, but I may be somewhat changing my opinion of him.  I thought, “A moon base?!  Wow… that’s pretty, awesome.”   During his second term, he tells us we’ll have a moon base.  But will Congress fund a moon colony?  If so, I’ll vote for Newt.  I’d love to see mankind construct a moon base.  Obama’s just going to indefinitely detain me and I will NEVER vote for someone who doesn’t even believe in due process.  But I’m sure Newt will just continue those same policies too… *grits teeth*  Why does every candidate have to suck?  I haven’t read if he has a position on the Patriot Act, SOPA, PIPA, and all that.  I didn’t feel Newt was even close to electable considering what he did to his past wives.   Should I even vote?  I don’t want any of these people running our country.

Vote Ron Paul?  Eh’, Ron’s going to cut every government service, and though I’d like to see a lot of waste eliminated, I know there are vital government services that we need.  It’s just too radical of a position.  So why not Newt?   I don’t like any of these people, but if Newt is elected, maybe we will build a moon base.  I could be proud of my generation.  I’d be an old man, my great nephews would visit me in my cabin out in the middle of nowhere, and I’d have photographs in my album of me working on the moon base.

“…twice recently Governor Romney has made fun of me for having bold ideas in space and has suggested that the idea of having a permanent lunar colony – he actually didn’t catch the weirdest thing I’ve ever done and I’m going to tell you all because sooner or later his researchers will find it – at one point early in my career I introduced the Northwest Ordinance for Space, and I said when we get – I think the number was 13,000 – when we have 13,000 Americans living on the Moon they can petition to become a state [laughter and applause].

And here’s the difference between romantics and so-called practical people. I wanted every young American to say to themselves: I could be one of those 13,000. I could be a pioneer. I need to study science and math and engineering. I need to learn how to be a technician. I can be part of building a bigger, better future. I can actually go out and live the future looking at the solar system and being part of a generation of courageous people who do something big and bold and heroic.

And I will as President encourage the introduction for the Northwest Ordinance for Space to put a marker down that we want Americans to think boldly about the future and we want Americans to go out and study hard and work hard, and together we are going to unleash the American people to rebuild the country we love [applause].

So, I’m going to give you a set of goals and then I’m going to make a set of observations about how to achieve those goals.

By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the Moon, and it will be American [applause].

We will have commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism, and manufacturing, and are designed to create a robust industry precisely on the model that was developed by the airlines in the 1930s, because it is in our interest to acquire so much experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching [applause].

And by the end of 2020 we will have the first continuous propulsion system in space capable of getting to Mars in a remarkably short time, because I am sick of being told we have to be timid, and I’m sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50 years old [applause].”

- Newt Gingrich, during his speech January 25th Space Policy Town Hall speech

Not only the moon, but new propulsion systems which can take us to Mars and beyond.  That’s about the only cool thing I’ve heard out of any of these candidates.  If that’s not all rhetoric Newt, I’ll consider voting for you.  You fund it, I’ll help build it.  But I have my doubts about you.  Can you seriously get Congress to fund something other than yet another middle-eastern war?  Our needing to “stop” Iran from getting imaginary nuclear weapons seems to be the only issue our two parties agree on.  I would have hoped we’d learned our lesson in Iraq.

*Sigh*  Why do I even bother following politics.  It just makes be depressed.

Just a few days ago I felt compelled to blog about the conditions of workers in Chinese factories like Foxconn.  These factories are responsible for assembling our iPods, iPads, Xboxes, and other electronic devices.  Workers in these places are slaves.  If you can’t see that, you’re completely blind.  They can be at times worked for 35 hour long shifts, paid a whopping 35 cents an hour, and are often caught attempting suicide within the factory.  What kind of workplace has nets hanging from the walls to catch suicide roof jumpers?  I’m really tired of hearing people praise Steve Jobs.  Companies like Sony, Apple, and Microsoft are earning billions of dollars in profits as they exploit the poor and helpless.  35 cents an hour?  Twelve year prison sentences if they try to form a union?  Eight people to a small dorm, crammed together like sardines?  It’s evil.

Jon Stewart covered the issue, and I think you should watch him.

Some days I just lose hope in humanity.

Around 300 Chinese workers who manufacture XBox consoles took to a factory roof and threatened bosses with mass suicide over a dispute about pay, unconfirmed reports have claimed.

The workers were employed at the Foxconn Technology Park in Wuhan in Hubei province. Foxconn is an independent, global manufacturing partner to companies including Apple, Microsoft and Sony.

- Source:  Huffington Post

Think how miserable you’d have to be to even make demands like this.  With this in mind, look at these tweets from American children, complaining how their parents didn’t buy them the latest iPad, iPhone, or XBox for Christmas.

Across the world, those devices are being made by despondent Chinese workers, so poor and miserable that they’re threatening to kill themselves in mass by jumping from the factory roof.

Well everyone, it’s official.  Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law.  You can be thrown into prison indefinitely, without a trial, without evidence being brought against you, all at the executive branch’s whim.  What a way to start the new year.

This is a sad time.  Almost pathetic.  I’m sure most of you have taken a civics class.  We all know this is not American.

I may be a bit of a recluse at times, but I know, I just KNOW that people can see that this is the wrong direction.  People know the government has no right to spy on them.  They know they should be innocent until proven guilty and have a right to proper due process.  They deserve a speedy trial, should be given a lawyer if they can’t afford one, and shouldn’t be tortured.  People know that locking up a person indefinitely in a prison, without a trial, is wrong.

By signing this into law, our president has shown that he doesn’t stand for freedom or American values.  I could never vote for Barack Obama in good conscience.  And this isn’t the only issue I have with him.  He bailed out the banks and has failed to properly regulate them.  The global economy is still in struggling, in large part because of Wall Street’s casino, with its corruption and financial derivative schemes.  We’ve seen no pressure for regulation and the restoration of a sane financial system.

Many people seem to believe Obama saved us from a major depression.  All he did was stuff the banks full of money when they were going bankrupt and now they’ve returned to business as usual.  Certainly you haven’t forgotten about the record bonuses Wall Street executives were paying themselves with bailout money?  Even so, I’m not surprised.  Half of Obama’s cabinet members are bankers and former Wall Street executives.

We have police state legislation being passed and our civil liberties are becoming a thing of the past.  Our government is continuing to spy on us.  Worthless wars continue to be waged in the middle east, draining our resources.  Criminals are being locked up in publicly traded, privately owned prisons, which are raking in huge profits by imprisoning our citizens over petty crimes.  The drug war continues on.

Our infrastructure in in shambles.  I want Obama out of there.  He’s not standing for you or for me.  All I see is a man consolidating power in the executive branch and socialism for the rich.

So who else do we have to choose from in our next election?  Mitt Romney will tell you anything you want to hear.  He’s the cardboard cookie-cutter politician.  He has about as much backbone as a piece of taffy.

Newt Gingrich is a career politician who left his wife as she was dying of cancer.  A friend of his said that Newt was worried she wasn’t young or pretty enough to be the wife of the president, and of course, she had cancer.  He was paid millions of dollars to consult Freddie Mac before it went bankrupt.  He’s morally bankrupt.   Just look at him.

Rick Perry can’t even remember his simple talking points.  He’s outside praying for rain.  Michelle Bachmann can’t seem to get her facts straight three quarters of the time.  It seems we can’t have a single debate without her throwing out a real zinger from the twilight zone.  Rick Santorum, well, he’d be much happier if he lived in the middle ages.  And let’s all hope Sarah Palin stays out of the mix.  We’ve had enough of her.  I don’t expect her to run, but I wouldn’t put it past her to try to keep us all in suspense.  The more media exposure, the higher ratings for her reality show, and I’m sure her and Bristol have books to sell.

There is one candidate we mustn’t forget about – Ron Paul.

It’s been strange watching things unfold.  It’s obvious the media has been trying to shut him out.  Even after winning the Iowa caucus, he’s still ignored.  That tells you something is up.  Politicians wish to be viewed as an outsider.  John McCain’s entire campaign last year tried to brand him as an outsider maverick, ready to change things in Washington.  Well if you want a real maverick, take a look at Ron Paul.  He fits that description better than anyone I’ve ever seen.  The mainstream media hates the guy.  The man rocks the boat, that’s for sure.

Here’s the issues I support him on:

1.  He’ll end the wars and bring the troops home, saving us trillions of dollars.  The terrorism threats are greatly exaggerated, and people know it.  Ron Paul will help calm the nation down.

2.  He’ll restore our civil liberties, end the privately owned prison racket, and put an end to the worthless war on drugs.

3.  He’ll fight for transparency in the banking system, and demand audits of the Federal Reserve’s books.  Ron doesn’t take any nonsense when it comes economic issues.  After all, that’s the very reason he entered politics to begin with.

4.  He’ll balance our budget and save our country from bankruptcy.

The White House has a lot of control over the initial framing of the budget, as well as the military, FBI, and CIA.  That’s why I think he could actually do the four things I just listed.  As for his more extreme positions, I don’t think Congress will let him have his way.  They won’t let him abolish the FDA or EPA.  They’ll probably let him lower taxes, but not by much.  All in all, they’ll hold him in check.

I think he’s the best candidate out there, even if I don’t agree with him on everything.  His main message is we’re broke, we need to balance our budget, stop policing the world, and respect the constitution.  I’m with him on all those things one hundred percent.  I know he’s a honest guy who believes in free markets, and he’d be tough on wasteful spending.  Though a lot of people think America is invincible, and that normal economic laws don’t apply to us, I assure you they do.  We can’t continue the deficit spending.  It has to come to an end and it might as well be now.  Things will only get worse the longer we prolong things.

Many will tell you that voting for Ron Paul is throwing your vote away.  They say he’s unelectable.  But I can’t take any more of the standard, run of the mill Republics or Democrats.  Barack Obama, a Democrat,  promised to end Guantanamo, promised to bring the troops home, we were going to have a public option, Wall Street was going to be reformed, he was going to get our spending under control, and our civil liberties were going to be restored.  But what happened?  Nothing.  All we’ve received is excuses.  The typical blame game.  I’m tired of excuses.

Obama was elected on a huge swing of momentum.  Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.  He could’ve done many of the things progressives wanted, but he didn’t.  Why?  He’s not serving you.  He’s serving his corporate masters.  He told us all we wanted to hear, and then when he got in office, he ignored us.  But as election time rolls near, he’s going to come back to us on hands and knees pleading, “Baby forgive me.  I know I did ya wrong, but I’ve been doing some thinking.  I’ve changed.  Hear me out.  We can make this work.”  It’s time for us to move on.

Do we go back to the Republicans?  No.  There’s a reason Obama had the massive initial momentum he did.  Remember all the boo’s during Bush’s farewell parade back to Texas?  We didn’t like that guy.  A vote for Romney or Gingrich is basically asking to put Bush back in office.  Don’t do it.

That leaves us with only one choice:  Ron Paul.  Even if you don’t like some of his ideas (and to be honest, a few of them scare me as well), consider the points I made.

There’s a reason I fell in love with computer programming at such a young age.  Watching a robot drive around the room, building a 3D model of its environment, understanding its position within that space, and properly avoiding the walls and obstacles is just too awesome for words.  I spend more time doing physics these days than I do writing computer algorithms like this, but I regret not having the time to do everything.

I like reflecting on how our brain represents an environment and building algorithms which lets a machine understand how the things in that environment behave.  I think the ultimate way to understand the mind is to build a machine which is capable of doing the same things it does.  If you understand your mind well enough, you can send a machine you built downstairs to buy yourself a Subway sandwich.  Just think of the possibilities.

It won’t be all that long before robots like Asimo here will be in restaurants across the country cooking your food, taking your order, waiting on your table, and washing your dirty dishes.  It’ll leave a lot of people unemployed, but I really hope to see the day when robots can manage a restaurant entirely on their own, with no human intervention.  If I live to a normal age of around 80, I have about fifty years or so.  I think it’s plausible that I’ll see it happen.  If I were to guess though, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it much sooner than that.

You can’t watch videos of Willow Garage’s PR2 system and not realize that robots will soon be able to handle mundane, unskilled tasks and do them far more effectively than humans.

Imagine the future McDonalds.  I could see a fully automated store with robots capable of making Big Macs and Quarter pounders far faster than humans, and with perfect consistency.  McDonalds execs will no longer have to traumatize teenagers with their first jobs.  What will they use to scare them into college?

My first job was at Burger King at age 16.  It was a nightmare.   Years ago I gathered up all my memories of that experience and put them into this here.   I’ll feel lonely though.  I’ll be the last of a dying breed of people who had to do horrible menial labor for slave wages.  I’ve never served in the military, but I think my BK experience is about the next best thing to sharing war stories.  That was some 14 years ago, but I remember it very vividly, even today.

For a long time now I’ve wanted to write a computer program which can take a film of me roaming around town and automatically produce a 3D model of the area based on the film footage alone.   I found a video on Youtube where researchers did just that.

Isn’t that awesome?  I can write code which can do this same thing, but what I’m now wanting to know is how to separate objects one from another.  For example, your mind would automatically separate the statue, sidewalk, and buildings all as separate things.  To this computer algorithm, it’s all connected and it’s just one stream of points located in space.  It doesn’t “know” what those points represent.  It doesn’t say, “This block of points over here represents the civil engineering building, these other ones a statue, whereas these over here are the sidewalk extending toward the central park.”

The more I’ve looked into this problem, the more difficult it becomes.   For example, how would an algorithm know that the ramp in front of a building is a part of the building, or just a structure nearby?  How would it know to group them together?  It’d have to know the purpose of ramps, and know that humans with disabilities need those in order to get inside the building.  Knowing how to separate the world out into objects will be really complicated, requiring a deep understanding of humans, their desires, and how the world works.  It would require learning about objects and what role they play in life.  That takes the problem to a whole new level.  I still have a lot to learn about how our mind works, but I’m making progress!

Let’s all admit it.  Let’s stop the denial and look at what’s really going on.  Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ve probably realized that ever since this “War On Terror” began, our civil liberties and freedoms have been rather rapidly eroding away.  Probably the single most important provision to a system of justice is due process.  Your charges are openly brought against you, you’re innocent until proven guilty, you’re brought before a jury of your peers to defend yourself, you have a right to an attorney, and so on.   Well take a look at this:

The Senate voted Tuesday to keep a controversial provision to let the military detain terrorism suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial — prompting White House officials to reissue a veto threat.

The measure, part of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, was also opposed by civil libertarians on the left and right. But 16 Democrats and an independent joined with Republicans to defeat an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would have killed the provision, voting it down with 61 against, and 37 for it.

“I’m very, very, concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the Senate’s most conservative members.

Paul’s top complaint is that a terrorism suspect would get just one hearing where the military could assert that the person is a suspected terrorist — and then they could be locked up for life, without ever formally being charged. The only safety valve is a waiver from the secretary of defense.

“It’s not enough just to be alleged to be a terrorist,” Paul said, echoing the views of the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s part of what due process is — deciding, are you a terrorist? I think it’s important that we not allow U.S. citizens to be taken.”

Democrats who were also concerned about liberties compared the military policing of Americans to the detention of Americans in internment camps during World War II.

“Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who offered another amendment — which has not yet gotten a vote — that she said would correct the problem. “We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge.”

Backers of military detention of Americans — a measure crafted by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) — came out swinging against Udall’s amendment on the Senate floor earlier Tuesday.

“The enemy is all over the world. Here at home. And when people take up arms against the United States and [are] captured within the United States, why should we not be able to use our military and intelligence community to question that person as to what they know about enemy activity?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.

“They should not be read their Miranda Rights. They should not be given a lawyer,” Graham said. “They should be held humanely in military custody and interrogated about why they joined al Qaeda and what they were going to do to all of us.”

Source:  Huffington Post

Of course, none of this is really new.  We’ve had the Patriot Act for a while, but now they’re just wanting to push all of this police state legislation even further.  We already have a system of dealing with wrong-doers.  We already have laws in place for crimes.  There’s never a need to create a special set of laws for “terrorists”.

You know, maybe I just see this stuff so clearly because I’ve spent years of my life studying history.   I think about the old Soviet Union, North Korea, Nazi Germany, and the list goes on.  There’s a pattern to what they do.  They always use the same tactics, over and over and over.  You have to manufacture an idea of either internal or external terror.  In our case, it’s Al Qaeda and the Taliban.   Next you create secret prisons because you need to develop a separate legal system to bypass the courts and the normal rule of law.  This is the true intention behind Guantanamo Bay.  You tell the people that these special “terrorists” don’t have any rights, and after extensive propaganda campaigns you have to hammer into people’s minds fear, fear, and more fear.  That way they give up their freedoms voluntarily.  Next you need your own personal thug paramilitary caste to enforce your arbitrary rule of law.  This is what Blackwater is.  As this police state develops, huge government programs grow up to spy and police the citizens all under the guise of protecting you from “terrorists”.  I’ve already written written several blog posts about developments in this area.  You can find one I wrote about two years ago here.  They start reading your mail, they’re listening into your phone calls, they’re gaining access to your bank accounts, and so on.  They start monitoring more and more people.  Once they’ve gained a huge foothold over the system, they start arbitrarily throwing dissidents in jail, removing political enemies, and controlling the press.  In the end the entire free society as you knew it is gone and you’re left with a totalitarian dictator running the show.

Currently we’re at the step where they keep broadening  the concept as to what constitutes a “terrorist”, and continue to expand their facilities which carefully monitor the people.

Maybe I’m over-exaggerating here. Maybe there’s no need for alarm. But I can’t say that to all of you and be honest about how I feel. I’m worried.  Luckily this sort of thing isn’t being ignored.  Even guys like Jon Stewart are covering this.  Sad thing is, people just laugh about it.  It’s not funny.  When I watched this skit, I didn’t laugh at all.  I sat in terror.

Like most people, I don’t want to deal with any of this. I think, “Why is this happening to me?  Why now?  Why during my generation?”  There’s always someone wanting steal our freedom, take our money, silence our free speech, and confine us to a miserable life of poverty and toil. Like every generation, we have to stand up and stop these people from ruining everything.

I’ve been waiting for this series to come out for the past six months or more!  It’s the latest nature series by David Attenborough.  He’s covering the Arctic and Antarctica.  Seven one hour programs in gorgeous HD.  These have always been my favorite TV programs to watch.  Here’s a preview.

Poor little guy.