To grasp how dumb the ANWR fight is, I included some pictures.
In an desolate federal reserve the size of South Carolina, the state and locals wanted to drill on 3 square miles of deserted frozen wasteland tundra, in the middle of fucking nowhere (20 million acres of inaccessible nothingness). And the thought that other people might be doing something productive to get us off foreign oil, miles away from anywhere, was too much for the left to handle. They created a misleading ads showing majestic mountains or fertile rivers (that were 500 miles away), having nothing to do with the area we're talking about. They screamed about the caribou and polar bears, again, which had nothing to do with the area we were discussing. Obama promised "all of the above" energy, then obstructed this for 8 years. Once a non oil-obstructionist was elected (Trump), it was allowed months later -- which will result in less foreign energy dependence, cheaper gas, and more jobs. more...
Started as a penal colony, Oz, as it is sometimes abbreviated, is a wonderful place, with wonderful people, and flora and fauna that all wants to kill you. Like Canada, they are far to the left of America: which means they don't REALLY understand what made America great, and they have a miseducated populous that thinks the way to Social Justice is by the collectivism taxing and regulating everyone else into utopia. In the name of freedom, of course. more...
Austria: Germany Light. 1/3rd less Calories than regular Germany. more...
Baltimore is another far left city, that acts like intolerant idiots, while mismanaging their city into a corrupt shithole country. more...
Belgium, the new murder capital of the world. OK, perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic -- but the point is that they're exterminating people for a variety of reasons -- some by choice, others because they are as Hitler the Nazi's called them, Unnütze Esser – (lit. "useless eaters" or "useless mouths")".
As a libertarians, I happen to be for euthanasia. But that doesn't mean I think there shouldn't be any controls on it. And the mental ill or non-responsive (vegetative) can't give consent, so presuming it is not euthanasia it's extermination. more...
When thousands of people flooded through the checkpoints on the Berlin Wall, it was the end of an era. The years of a divided Germany were at an end, and the fall of the Soviet Union was not far behind. And it all happened because a man named Günter Schabowski made a mistake. more...
The land of intolerance, hypocrisy and progressivism... but I repeat myself. This article lists some examples of the intolerance, incompetence, and progressivism that has come to exemplify the Golden State. (NOTE: While the Golden State once referred to the color of the dried grass hills so common in California, it now refers to the vagrant urine covered streets of San Francisco or L.A.) more...
Global Warming isn't California's problem with fires:
- The number of fires have gone down
- The dollars in damage may have gone up... but that's only because we have more people and more things of value (houses)
- Any size increase in fires can be traces to faux environmentalism (Green/Democrat/Left policies) like restricting logging, reducing clearing vegetation (fuel), and so on.
Instead of owning those mistakes, they want to blame: (a) Global Warming (b) Trump (c) make excuses like "we don't technically own all the land we manage/regulate" (d) spend 10x as much on electric car subsidies (or 100x as much on trains), as clearing dead trees. It's one thing to be foolish, it's another thing to do it with a megaphone. more...
Factoids about Canada. Note that I like Canada, and have a lot of Canadian friends. All good folks. That being said, the things that are likely to catch my interests, aren't going to be all the good things, but mostly quirks or less than good things. I mean if I REALLY liked Canada, I would have moved there, eh? But to me, it's like a colder version of Seattle, full of people that are nice enough, but don't understand why America became America -- despite the britons paying people to move to Canada. more...
Chappaquiddick: where Ted Kennedy did an amphibious assault in the "War on Women", and the Democrats to this day, will make excuses for it. The FakeNews NYT and AP will still whitewash the story for the Democrats and pretend it was a accident instead of a conspiracy and a coverup of manslaughter at best. more...
Articles that touch on some of the complexities of China. Of course China is a complex country, with rich culture and over 1B people. So there are few truisms or observations that apply to everywhere and everywhen. more...
China doesn't believe that individuals matter: they care about the collective. That means that individual privacy is not something they even fathom. Why wouldn't you spy on your neighbor? If the state's objective is to protect the state, than places that don't use the Internet to protect the state are stupid and going to be darwin'ed out of the gene pool someday. And China is patient. more...
Culture Shock: Moving to Ohio from California. We relocated for a job opportunity: as a California native, this was going to be an interesting opportunity for personal growth. I love learning and information -- about people, technology, history, or just stuff. Usually what I know is the stuff that others don't care about, and don't necessarily want to hear about (at least for not as long as I'm willing to go on about it). But isn't that the fun of sharing and people? Getting to pin them in a corner, and talk their ears off while their eyes glaze over or they look desparately for escape? Ohio (or the midwest) may be old hat to many readers -- but to me, it is totally fresh information. And such a change from what I'm used to. This is a summary of some things that were "different" to a Californian. more...
Cozumel, Mexico -- the best family vacation, ever. Vacation trips can be fun, but they can also be stressful; especially when traveling with friends and family. My recent vacation exemplifies a "typical" family vacation for me; and people wonder why I'm a home body? Seriously, I had a good time, but was wrecked after I got back. And this remains the best family vacation we ever took. more...
There's something rotten in Denmark, at least if all the rumors and plays are to be believed. more...
Europeans that stay in Europe don't usually understand the U.S., or what made us successful. They think they do because they watch Hollywood's version of America, as seen through their Eurocentric eyes -- but that's like asking Democrats about what motivates Republicans: the answers are usually garbage. That's why the French Revolution was such a failure. And it's why the European Union (EU) inverted the U.S. The U.S. was created so that we the people could separate from a monarchy, self govern as a lot of local (State) democracies, with the minimum overarching federalism as possible. The EU was created to turn a bunch of separate little democracracies with autonomy into one unresponsive Brussels (or Berlin) run monarchy. It's not just that's the wrong idea... it's that they THINK they're doing what we did, when they're doing the exact opposite. We were created on individualism and limiting government power, and they are created on collectivism, centralization and maximize it. more...
Finland is often held up as part of the Scandavian Miracle : the false trope that things are great in Nordic countries because they have great social programs. When anyone who looks deeper than the surface learns (a) they are not socialists (b) there are many problems and failures that make them more a model of "How not to", than "How to". The collapse of Universal healthcare in Finland is a great example. Social programs work well, for a while... until the system finally collapses under the burdens of government run anything (or everything). Like happened in Venezuela, or everywhere else it has been tried. The question isn't whether it will fail, but how long they can go before ruination. more...
Articles about France, a country with one of the richest histories in a world. While much of it is a "how not to", they also have a class, style, and culture that is unique, arrogant, and stylish. But most of the things I write on are the lesser known, and usually less complimentary things. That's not out of malice, but I find the more arcane more interesting, even when it's not flattering. Topics: America made Saddam, Dunkirk (2017), France: Mass Murders, Never trust France, Paris Climate Accord, Patriot Act, Vietnam, Wait for France, U.N. or Sanctions, and so on. more...
I have nothing against Germany. In fact, I have a lot of family there, and it's one of the nicest countries I've visited: the trains run mostly on-time, they have a nicer quality of life, and better services than many countries in the world. But there are negatives too: a collectivist culture, bureaucratic, too many rules and too much intolerance. (Every rule/law/regulation is a way to tell someone else what they can/cannot do). And historically, they did a lot of bad things. I try not to rub that latter part in, because most alive today had nothing to do with that. But there's a reason that stuff happened there: and it is the collectivism that is the birthplace of Marx and Engels, and that socialist poison is infused in their water and culture, and exists (in its more moderate form), just waiting for the opportunity to spring out again. more...
A frozen wasteland with a huge ice sheet and a lot of natural resources underneath it. It has historically been under-utilized by it's occupiers, the latest is Denmark. more...
These are articles about Hawaii more...
H. J. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, he was on his honeymoon in 1886 at the top of the hill looking out over the valley. Along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed. The Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, "I holly-wood," meaning 'hauling wood.' H. J. Whitley decided to name his new town Hollywood: "Holly" would represent England and "wood" would represent his Scottish heritage.
H. J. Whitley's company (Los Angeles Pacific Boulevard and Development Company), bought the 480 acres E.C. Hurd ranch, and created the map of his plans. But it was Daeida Wilcox, a prominent investor and friend of Whitley's, who recommended the same name to her husband, who had purchased 120 acres on February 1, 1887, and they used that name and filed it with the Los Angeles County Recorder's office on a deed and parcel map of the property.
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality on November 14, 1903, and then (January 30, 1904) banished liquor in the city, except when it was being sold for medicinal purposes, and later movie theaters. Then in 1910, the city voted to merge with Los Angeles in order to secure an adequate water supply and to gain access to the L.A. sewer system. Finally 1923, a large sign, reading HOLLYWOODLAND, was built in the Hollywood Hills to advertise a housing development -- and in 1949 the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce took over repair and rebuilding the sign: including removing the last 4 letters, to now refer to the district, rather than the housing development.
After problems in New Jersey because of Edison suing filmmakers, many of them fled west to Los Angeles area and started setting up production near Los Angeles for better weather, variety of terrain, and to evade New Jersey patent infringement. Hollywood became known as Tinseltown and the "dream factory" because of the glittering image of the movie industry.
This is the perfect summary, it was named after a racial slur, sold as being for something else. It was named by one person but another person registered it. The first thing they did was make it a dry city and ban the industry that made it famous -- which only happened there so they could rip off someone else's intellectual property. The sign they're most famous for was done by someone else, and they stole credit. And only a few years after being founded they had to give up control because they couldn't manage their own water or sewage. The more things change, the more they stay the same. more...
Observations about Houston (where we currently live). more...
Articles about India, a country with a rich history that many people know far less about than they think they do. more...
I have family in Iran, an Iranian Birth Certificate, and it's where much of my family comes from. This is a collection of stories about Iran from an Iranian American (I hate that common phrasing, as I'm an American of Persian/Iranian decent, not the other way around). more...
This covers many of the fallacies and bad arguments about the Iraq War. Disagreeing over the cost/benefits of a war is fine, ignoring truths because they get in the way of your agenda is not. more...
Here's a few articles about Jews, Israel, Zionism/anti-Zionism, and a bit of anti-semitism throw in. While Israel is flawed place, that is often persecuted unfairly for self defense. It's just the least flawed, with the most democracy, liberty and civil rights of any country in the Middle East... even if you're a Muslim. more...
I have nothing against Italy. In fact, I have a lot of family there, and it's got great people and culture. But they believed in centralized government, and the wisdom of the masses, and the state over the individual: and the results was a slow decay in malaise, that the individuals all admit is stifling, but none will question their prime assumptions enough to fix. The wise give up and leave, or at least stop trying -- and the rest are resigned to complain and climb to the bottom and be the biggest victims. And that's Progressive Democratic Socialism in a nutshell. more...
L.A. is a poorly run city, and it's controlled by the far left. The reasonable infer that correlation might have some causation. The idiots in the PRC (People's Republic of California) and L.A., can not. Time to put a wall around it, and write it off from being part of America. more...
I sometimes call myself a radical centrist. It's not because I like playing devil's advocate for the sake of being argumentative, it's that many people see the world in extremes: their way or the wrong way. Thus when people are arguing a cartoon version of the world (the U.S. or a President is always wrong/right), I just want to point out that it's a lot more nuanced than that -- and usually they respond with a reductio ad absurdum response, "if you're not completely against X, then I must be for it" (or vise versa). I wish the world that was that simple, but it isn't. North Korea is the perfect example of that. more...
Russia, our friendly comrades that hate us for our power, freedom, and annoying ability to stick our noses in all kinds of shit and screw it up. more...
San Jose is where I lived for many years. It's the most most bigoted city, in the most bigoted state I lived in. Worse, they are the least self aware people on their own bigotry. This lists a few examples. more...
Seattle: once called the Emerald City, they paid a consulting company $200,000 to come up their new slogan: " Metronatural". Then they painted it on the Space needle. That sums up the sad state that Seattle has become: the intersection of radical political correctness with radical environmentalism, mixed in a concophany of homelessness, high taxes, and the worst traffic in the nation. They might not be able to handle the hard stuff, like roads or homelessness, but at least they know how to drive out jobs and hurt people. more...
Democrats leaked to the Democrat Press (WaPo), that Trump used the term "Shithole" to refer to a few countries (that are shitholes), while in the immigration debate. Then both hypocritically made a stink about a nothingburger for many many days of 24/7 coverage, while ignoring all the important points. There's deeper issues here, but the mocking of the term (or the defense of it), just divided us on partly lines because making stink over Trump's style (and what the Dem side did too), isn't going to persuade anyone who doesn't already hate Trump of anything. The thinkers will be outraged at what's went on behind the curtain of FakeNews and histrionics. more...
Great country, has a few problems. Like hand grenade attacks. more...
A list of thing about the UK. Some good, some bad. OK... mostly bad. more...
Articles about the USA, a country with a rich history that many people know far less about than they think they do. more...
 Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) was everything that Hollywood, Michael Moore, Sean Penn and other limousine Socialists wanted: they came in, nationalized the oil, redistributed the wealth (created education and lots of programs)... and eventually the wealth ran out. And Venezuela went from being one of the economic capitals of growth and industry in South America, to a collapsed country with rampant poverty that produces little but crime and refugees.
So what did we learn? That's a joke, if Socialists could learn, they would have gone extinct thousands of years ago. What some of us learned is that Socialism can work for a short while, but central planning always underperforms a free market. They may collapse in 5 years, or may struggle for 50, but the idea that the central planners know more than everyone else, is flawed at it's nature. What happens is that they focus on the best producing industries, and run them more efficient by eliminating competition. But while that leanness looks good in the short term, it suffocates innovation, and it destroyed diversity of their economy (everything becomes about the few things the planners are focused on, and everything else starves out). Then when enough innovation happens in their key industry (and the didn't keep up), or a disruptive technology comes along, they all suffocate and have nothing else to fall back on. And the real illiterates will claim, "Real Socialism has never been tried", and invent a reason for why another failure doesn't count. more...
Vermont keeps electing Bernie Sanders. If that doesn't tell you enough of their stupid ideology, they started a program to pay people $10,000 to come there, where they will be taxed nearly that in a year (not counting moving fees). So a 1-2 year break-even is great for Vermont, if there's any rubes gullible enough to fall for that. I know some people I'd pay $10,000 to move to Vermont as well. A few of them would be happy to call Sanders their senator. more...
As an American, Vietnam is usually talking about the war. And you can't talk about Vietnam war without talking about what lead up to the war, why it was fought, who won (and lost) the war), what were the consequences, and a lot of messiness around intentions and outcomes. This covers all of those topics. more...
There's a prevalent myth that America lost the Vietnam war. But rememeber history :
- 1972 - The Paris Peace Accords in 1972. Vietnam surrendered, we had a peace agreement and everything was fine. Tada. War over.
- 1974 - (two years later), the Democrats won congress. They immediately started cutting off all funding/support for South Vietnam
- 1975 - in January 1975 the North tried a probing attack to see if the U.S. would stop them (the South had a 2:1 advantage in most areas like artillery/planes/etc -- but no money for fuel). The Democrats denied treaties and obligations, and without that financial support, the NVA overran the country by the end of April.
So Americans didn't lose the first Vietnam war, democrats lost us the second one, by letting Russia, China and North Vietnam know they could have it. more...
The point isn't that I'm pro war, or even pro Vietnam war. It's that if we want to learn and grow we have to accept both the good and the bad of positions we agree/disagree with. This article tries to cover some of those tradeoffs for the Vietnam War. At least what lead up to Kent State, which is where the view of the war turned for American, internally/politically. more...
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