Weapons of Mass Deception

I have been a part of many mailing lists over the years, from work-related announcement lists, to auto enthusiast lists, faith-based study and encouragement lists, politics, health, technology, even humor and recreational lists. I even ran some mailing lists as far back as the late 1980s.

Most of these lists have one thing in common, to inform the audience about a given topic and incite an action of some form, to get the reader up off the couch and moving in the "right" direction.

Many of the lists provide a considerable amount of fantastic, in-depth information assembled by people who are dedicated and enthusiastic about the topic at hand. But even the announcement-only lists have a world-view centered around the topic at hand. So the challenge handed to every reader is to consolidate all the relevant information and make wise, well-rounded, experience based decisions. No big deal, this is the beauty of focused conversation.

So I got a promotional email earlier today from one of my weekly lists. The list is about independent healthy living, so conversations are normally centered around healthy bug-resistant organic gardening and how to not be a basket case should the power or water go out or the local HEB run out of popcorn oil. The email contained a warning about the potential for an enormous radiation explosion within the sun which would inevitably cause a huge electromagnetic pulse and destroy a lot of the world's power transmission capabilities. Sure, it's blurring the boundary between science and science-fiction and there is a very, very remote possibility of something like that harming the infrastructure, but the thing that really caught my eye was the solution.

The author was recommending a solar-electric generator for his readers to become self-sufficient.

This is where my trivial experience in electronics and power generation / transmission stepped in with a "Hold it right there, pilgrim." I read and re-read the problem and solution statements to make sure I got the scenario and sure enough, the "solution" to a solar flare large enough to damage electronics and transformers all over the world is supposed to be a solar generator made up of electronics and transformers!

Even Mr. Magoo can see the problem, this enthusiast lists has transitioned into advocating on behalf of their sponsors instead of sharing objective and honest facts and solutions.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with sponsored lists, sponsors help finance these lists and promote the sharing of valuable information.

The problem is when sponsors start defining the message that gets spread.

One major thing I learned in two years of high school journalism is the concept of objectivity, being able to report on something without injecting a personal bias which taints the story. The key phrase there is "taints the story". We all see and say things through a filter based on our own experience which naturally shows up in all of our communications. This is a very real challenge of objective journalism and honest communications, how to keep those personal real-life filters from corrupting the message we need to share.

I freely admit my own biases. It's foolish to deny that my upbringing, faith and desires determine how I think. If you've ready my "I Believe" blog, you'll know what I mean and where I come from.

What I Believe

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. That He literally walked on this earth, that He died on the cross for our sins and rose again on the third day.

I believe that the United States of America is the last, best hope of earthly freedom for the human race, not because we are better than everyone else, but because we believe that freedom-derived opportunity is better for all people.

I believe that if people are allowed and encouraged to achieve, that they will achieve beyond their wildest dreams. I also believe that if people are constantly told "you can't do this without my help" that both parties will fail miserably and the human race suffers.

I believe that I am a better judge of my health needs than any government bureaucrat. I believe that my doctor is a better judge of my health needs than any government or insurance company bureaucrat. I also believe that it is solely my decision whether to inquire about or ignore any of my doctor's advice.

I believe that it is my decision alone how best to defend my own life or that of my family and friends in my care. I also believe that a refusal to make that decision leaves no right to comment on the outcome when someone else does.

I believe that if I want something my neighbor has, the only appropriate way to receive it is to work harder or longer to earn it.

I believe that failure is only temporary unless I fail to learn from it and forge on.

I believe that theft by government is still theft.

I believe that "sharing the wealth" can legitimately originate only from those who have the wealth to share.

I believe that greed by government is still greed.

I believe that any person who breaks their solemn oath to uphold, support, or defend the Constitution (of the US, State, County, or Town) should be immediately removed from office and disallowed from any future elected, appointed or hired position where an oath is required, and should lose all current and future benefits of the previously held position.

I believe that the right to free speech is about communications, not the sale of pornographic materials.

I believe that if the people who merely choose to live off government handouts were forced to work that we would have no problem with unemployment or welfare.

Why do I believe this? Because I was raised by devout Christian parents. My heroes are a full time mother who never expected the government to pay her for the role she still treasures, and a father who worked tirelessly so his family could have a better life than he experienced growing up.

A few memories which helped forge my beliefs:

As an 8 year old I was privileged to watch Dad graduate from the University of Oklahoma after seeing him work full time through the years of college and spend one weekend a month for his Air National Guard duties.

My Mom remains the world's best cook. From the daily snacks after school (peanut butter and brown sugar?) that she set out just before starting supper, to the shrimp gumbo in gallon buckets she sent back to college with me. Food was the binding agent for most of our family business since it was conducted almost exclusively around the kitchen table. Many experts are just now discovering what my parents understood and practiced decades ago.

I was blessed to attend my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary (and of my parents and parents-in-law).

Eww, that smell...

We drove by a little church building in Hankamer, Texas last year on a geocaching adventure. That drive-by inspired this article, not because of any special memories associated with the family that worshiped there or the facade on the front, but simply because of the smell I knew would be inside.

The cleaner and furniture polish they used on the wooden pews and wooden floor in the mid-1970s left a unique aroma after decades of buildup. It was neither unpleasant nor pleasant, but it was omnipresent. The building had a couple of classrooms in the back which we painted one Saturday afternoon and gagged on the paint fumes, but the single greatest thing I recall about that building is the smell of every Sunday evening's services. Maybe 25 people attended if we brought a couple of carloads from Baytown, the air conditioning was almost non-existent, the singing wasn't a draw but the preaching was pretty good, and I often unlocked the front door with a pocket knife because the key was miles away. I would probably not remember any of the other building memories except through that strong and unique scent.

How many times has a particular aroma brought up powerful components of a significant memory? Got time for a quick detour?

If you've ever had a noseful of airplane ventilation you know what I mean. That meld of plastic, leather, dirtyish carpet, stress, a tinge of burned jet fuel and spilled soft drinks is pretty unique to the airline experience. Does it remind you of that trip to Walt Disney World or Grandma's house for Christmas?

What about the stench of burned rubber and racing fuel found around racetracks? Just talking about it reminds me of a trip J.D. Walker, Guy Larson and I took to Buffalo Speedway in 1976.

The bouquet of Hoppe's #9 almost makes me feel the cold steel in my hands, and a whiff of consumed nitrocellulose will turn the head of most hoplophiles.

Good: electronics fresh from the plastic wrap. Bad: electronics after a catastrophic failure.

Chocolate. Coffee. Charcoal-grilled hamburger. Salmon. Garlic. Cinnamon. Fresh cookies, straight from the oven. Many of our instantly recognizable scents are reinforced through years of practice in or near the dining room. Bacon. Mmmmm bacon. Maple syrup. Bacon. Maple syrup. That's an easy loop to get stuck in.

Some smells are less pleasant, not by the smell itself but by the associated memories. The essence of isopropyl alcohol probably stirs memories of painful doctor-related events in most of us.

The fragrance of certain flowers reminds me of funeral homes, a perfume I like to avoid most days.

Skunk, 'nuff said.

Some smells can go either way: Wet dog. Springtime rain. Black earth. Manure. Diesel.

But because we're unique we don't all have the same scent-memory triggers. Some people probably associate the smell of Sterno with food warmers, I think of the Andromeda Strain, an obvious synapse-crossfire.

And then there's the memories of certain sounds, we'll discuss that at length some other time.

A Tribute to the Nation's Warriors

My heartfelt thanks to all of the nation's fighting men and women. I deeply appreciate your dedication to the safety of this country and our allies around the world.

John Stuart Mills once wrote "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

You, the Warrior class, are the "better men" Mills describes. I pray that you will forget that tiny minority who fail to value your sacrifice and remember only that "We the People" are in your court.

If You Don't Like The Weather...

I left work this evening a little before 6. The truck's thermometer usually reads a couple of degrees high after sitting in the parking lot all day and the 108 on the display was obviously a little above ambient. It was probably about 104.

I turned out onto Parmer Lane and could see more of the northeast hemisphere where the intensely sunny skies transitioned to dense, dark storm clouds. Within three minutes I had traveled no more than two miles from the office and the outside temperature had plummeted to 84 degrees and rain was breaking over the hood in waves. Two miles later the thermometer read 78 degrees and the now-waterlogged rush hour was down to a crawl.

By the time I covered the 7 miles to I-35 the storm had passed and only the lightest of sprinkles still reached the truck. Another 6 or 7 miles and I turned the corner onto our county road and turned the truck headlights off because no one in the area suspected there were storms in the vicinity. I noticed the thermometer was back up to 98 degrees.

So a 25 or 30 minute commute took me from an exaggerated 108 degrees to a stormy 78, back to a hot, sunny 98.

Yes, I survived an ancient weather cliche this evening, one of those timeless cliches based on real-life experience.

It was vewy, vewy quiet this morning

Our modern world has a ton of background noise, even in the wee hours at the beginning of the day, and I woke up to dead silence this morning. The alarm clock was blank, my first official notice something was amiss. My reliable and battery-backed-up watch said it was 5:39 AM.

"No problem, the electricity is never off very long, it'll be back in a few seconds." I stayed put, watching the ceiling fan do nothing while a random synapse misfire in the back of my mind wondered if June 17th was a special day to some goofy terrorist organization. A few seconds of introspection sped by until reality kicked back in and I realized that the ceiling fan was still not moving so it would soon be getting HOT! I know, it's only June 17th, but this is central Texas, we often start summer in April.

The next thing I noticed was a lack of beeping or other electronic alarms. Such noise is common around our abode when the uninterruptable power supplies lose their feeds. Nothing but silence, so the power had been off for quite a while.

I put on some clothes and walked out onto the driveway. The new subdivision across the street had working streetlights, but the church next door had no lights on their sign. No lights on the school to the northeast and nothing down the street to the south. Two doors down Jim's big American flag was hanging proudly, a pleasant sight as the sun came up but the lights around it were not lit. Another synapse misfire: "Does that change them into darks?"

Coffee is always nice when waking earlier than normal, but the pot's electric and finding the propane camp stove or firing up the motor home's generator is out of the question. Seriously, there's a McDonalds 2.5 miles away, I could have a cup on my table in 8 minutes without using my own hydrocarbons for direct electricity generation.

Real life must go on, might as well get ready for work

It's a good thing the master bath has a window. It's an especially good thing for me and my cube neighbors at work that my last water heater replacement was a 50 gallon model not a tankless. For the non-techies in the audience, this means I had hot water for my shower. A tankless requires electricity to heat the water as it is used, my old fashioned tanked model keeps a quantity of water hot at all times. This makes them somewhat less efficient than tankless, but the water remains hot for a while when the electricity is off. No wind so turbines would not have been a solution. The sun was just coming up so even a huge solar array would not have heated the water for a shower. Score one for inefficiency!

I would have gotten online or on the TV to see how widespread the electric outage was, but alas, no electron flow means no electron to photon conversion, and no information superhighway data to display. So much for maintaining a normal morning routine.

Another strange thought: I really hope that was toothpaste.

And where's the cat, did the 15 or 20 minutes of UPS beeping drive him underground?

I was dressed and all ready for work at about 6:30. My wife was already taking the day off but I thought I'd wake her as I left in case her morning plans involved electricity. I was literally reaching towards her shoulder when the LED on the front of the computer flickered then stayed on. The power was back, ceiling fans running, computers booting, life would soon be back to normal!

I say all of this to make the point that there is a reason electricity is also referred to as "power". It can do great things when working properly even if we treat it as nothing but a commodity and take it for granted. But when it's out, it suddenly becomes very, very important.

In some odd way, the lack of electricity was more noticeable that its presence, for no reason other than it has been present every morning of my life. That, more than the repair of this morning's outage, is a far more important accomplishment. Is this a great country or what!?!

It Takes a Village

As First Lady, Hillary Clinton was way ahead of her time in a number of ways. Mostly comedic and occasionally evil, but let's take a look back anyway.

In pushing for health care reform, or "Hillary Care" as many knew it, she once made the comment that "All children have the right to be born healthy". Why is this funny? Simple, she didn't believe children had the right to be born at all, so by adding the "healthy" qualifier she merely pointed out the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion, pro-healthcare-reform political left.

She also famously said that it takes a village to raise a child, irritating many with her anti-parent bias in context. I only bring this up now because of a cartoon I saw earlier.

The gators' image struck a nerve while another blog on tax rates was percolating. See, my wife and I both work to support our household. Our combined total income is well under the $250,000 limit the President campaigned on as a limit below which no taxes would be increased, but we have been very, very blessed with good jobs allowing us to fulfill our goal to pay for the kids' college education.

But, now that the President has recommended a 20% VAT, directed that the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire, and suggested raising many other taxes (crude oil production, cigarettes, luxuries like new cars, electricity production, food costs, etc) it has become pretty obvious that the campaign promise was nothing but hot air, and that the goal of left wing politicos may actually be to destroy the productive middle class of this nation.

If the direct taxes (VAT, oil, income) are increased or newly created, and the cost-increases-by-decree ("green" power, more expensive cars, expensive food requirements) continue to escalate without limit, more and more of the working middle class will become unable to take care of their own financial needs. If my wife and I can't handle those needs through hard work and cutting expenses, either our standards will have to drop or someone else (namely the government) will need to fill in the gap. Perhaps this is the "it takes a village" mentality Hillary had in mind almost 20 years ago. What a poor excuse for leadership, both then and now.

I believe in the greatness of this Nation. With the euro circling the drain because of the European continent's tendency towards socialism, the United States is truly the world's last, best hope.

November can't get here soon enough!!!