Same Old Cock and Bull – BONUS POST

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Trump wanted to be Reagan, but he’s actually more like Nixon.

There will be an admission that the president is senile only after the president’s men and his propagandists have exhausted all means of profiteering and retaliation.

Moving on, midterm campaigning starts soon. Here’s a song about what to do.

SAME OLD COCK AND BULL

sung to the tune of “Old Time Rock and Roll” with apologies to Bob Seger and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Vote those BLEEPing profiteers out the DOOR.
I’m sick of the criminal West Wing core.
Today’s government sold its soul.
I hate the media’s cock and bull.

Don’t try to blame their predecessors.
Blame those cowards in Congress and the courts.
In mere minutes, I’ll ignore the attention whores.
I hate the media’s cock and bull.

Still hate the media’s cock and bull.
The system’s fat cats are full.
With this greedy crew, we have no pull,
just the same old cock and bull.

Want to HEAR ’em check all the FACTS.
Don’t want to see AI political hacks.
We’ll sue, impeach or vote OUT the claques and flacks.
Ignore the media’s cock and bull.

I’m e-gali-TAR-ian, no need to be cruel.
By democracy, we should be ruled.
Today’s government sold its soul.
I hate the media’s cock and bull.

Still hate the media’s cock and bull.
The system’s fat cats are full.
With this greedy crew, we have no pull,
just the same old cock and bull.

I hate the media’s cock and bull.
The system’s fat cats are full.
With this greedy crew, we have no pull,
just the same old cock and bull.

Still hate the media’s cock and bull.
The system’s fat cats are full.
With this greedy crew, we have no pull,
just the same old cock and bull.

Still hate the media’s cock and bull.
The system’s fat cats are full.
With this greedy crew, we have no pull,
just the same old cock and bull.

Still hate the media’s cock and bull…

The Oracle of Oil

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The Book of the Week is “The Oracle of Oil, A Maverick Geologist’s Quest For A Sustainable Future” by Mason Inman, published in 2016.

The author– a journalist rather than a historian or academic– described redundantly in great detail, certain issues and historical events (perhaps those from sources to which he had easy access), and omitted or provided scant coverage on a bunch of others that were equally important.

The text was like Swiss cheese. He failed to mention the geopolitical issues of oil refining, oil spills, mergers of oil companies, nuclear disasters, and lawsuits and scandals that were game-changers in the energy arena.

If this volume was meant to be a career biography, the author should have simply said there were numerous issues and historical events that affected the subject’s career, but they were beyond the scope of the book. He could have simply named them without giving extensive depth to some and omitting others altogether.

Anyway, King Hubbert was born in 1903 in central Texas. He attended the University of Chicago, a focal point of intellectual ferment back in the day. He became a geologist and began working in the oil industry, which was in its infancy. He alternately worked and returned to school to earn higher academic degrees, during which he met theorists such as himself.

One was Howard Scott, whose early 1920’s vision consisted of a Communist society (all industries would be government-owned) which, through certificates rather than currency, would fulfill all of its citizens’ basic needs; food, clothing, housing, etc., pursuant to the amount of energy required to manufacture those goods. The people would work only sixteen hours a week, and have lots of leisure time.

By the early twentieth century, academics were spending untold amounts of time debating the merits of political, social and cultural systems– their own, and other nations’. In the 1920’s, they despaired that automation was putting people out of work, and monster-sized corporations manufactured their durable goods with “planned obsolescence” in mind. Propaganda even then, was persuading consumers to throw out old cars, machines and material goods (instead of repairing them), and buy new ones. In 1930, the nation was gobsmacked by the Great Depression.

In early 1932, Hubbert, Howard, and a few other engineers and scientists, included their aforementioned utopian fantasy in the theory of Technocracy, generating a report. Hubbert wrote the portion covering chemistry and physics. Engineers and scientists, rather than greedy capitalists, would direct their economy.

Two of their ideas have somewhat come to pass in modern society (a century later!):

  • Scientists and engineers (who are also greedy capitalists, from Silicon Valley) are controlling the world’s communications systems (and the U.S. government and economy); and
  • money has not altogether been eliminated, but two kinds of Socialistic means of exchange have been introduced in recent decades– the Euro and electronic currencies.

On the other hand, capitalism and consumerism have produced an abundance of material goods in the United States–to which other nations have aspired– lifting worldwide living standards. Yet, there is still extreme poverty, even in the United States. The overall cause of this paradox, is human nature– greed, guilt, fear and exclusivity.

Back in the 1940’s and for the next few decades, Hubbert and others made projections as to the amount of the earth’s fossil fuels still to be exploited by humans for their energy needs. His predictions were the most cautious. He truly cared about accurately analyzing data to publicize the truth.

In the early 1960’s, the newly elected president John F. Kennedy tasked committees with doing studies. There was interagency rivalry between the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Academy of Sciences. There were conflicts of interest, of course. Federal agency employees were clinging to their jobs and therefore trying to maximize their budgets. Oil-industry employees were hoping to get the government to pass legislation favorable to themselves.

The Atomic Energy Council (AEC) was a federal agency that approved the sites on which nuclear power plants were built. In 1966, the AEC refused to release a report critical of its nuclear waste disposal practices in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, salt mines in Kansas, Hanford in Washington state, and the Nuclear Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. Written by Hubbert’s committee, that report basically stated that the sites were cancer clusters. Nevertheless, by the mid-1980’s, approximately ninety nuclear power plants had become operational in the United States.

The author did mention that fracking is extremely damaging to the earth but didn’t mention how extremely damaging it is to people. Besides, it is extremely expensive, so shale gas drillers must take on crushing debt load.

In sum, there are no easy, simple solutions to the current fragmented, complex energy crises that plague the world. At the dawn of the 1970’s, Hubbert was proven correct in his assessments, but unsurprisingly, all the energy stakeholders in America clouded the issues with excessive propaganda. Read the book anyhow, to learn of Hubbert’s trials and tribulations in his trying to tell people what they didn’t want to hear.

Yankee From Olympus

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The Book of the Week is “Yankee From Olympus, Justice Holmes and His Family” by Catherine Drinker Bowden, published in 1944. The bulk of this volume recounted the lives of the members of Supreme-Court-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ family, beginning with his grandfather.

Born in March 1841 in the Boston area, Holmes was born to the white male privilege typical of his generation. His father was a prominent medical doctor. The Protestant Work Ethic dominated the aristocracy. Due to the potato famine in their homeland, Irish families were arriving on America’s shores in droves. “Boston had developed a caste system toward them almost like the Southern feeling for the Negro.” The South End neighborhood’s Irish boys threw hard snowballs or mud at boys such as Holmes, who attended private school.

Holmes acquired life-experience in psychological and physical trauma as an officer in the American Civil War. After his military discharge, he simply went over to Harvard Law School to sign up, paid the $100 a-year tuition, and in autumn 1864, began attending lectures. There was a total of three professors at the school. He didn’t need to take any tests, or do any assignments. Yes, times have changed.

Holmes practiced debating fellow students, though, and was told to read various texts written by law students or attorneys, that expounded on contracts, jurisprudence, or jurisdiction. At that time, academic culture consisted of males who were (presumably passionate about the law) mostly self-starters, sufficiently mature and disciplined to undertake independent study. Working at a law firm after graduating, Holmes became somewhat famous for writing articles for the Harvard Law Review.

Through the 1870’s, Holmes hated the drudgery of practicing law, and basically wanted to be a one-man legal think-tank. At the dawn of the 1880’s, he presented a Harvard lecture series to lawyers and their ilk, but his new theory was heretical for his generation. He suggested that public opinion should play a role in how the law was shaped. In 1882, as a Harvard law professor, he used the Socratic method along with the newly instituted case-analysis curriculum.

In 1904, a case reached the U.S. Supreme Court that tested the Sherman (antitrust) Act. If the monster-sized Northern Securities Company of merged railroads was going to restrain trade, then it should be dissolved. President Theodore Roosevelt believed in free-market competition and therefore became known as a monopoly-buster. But he was a political hack, and aroused public opinion whichever way was expedient for himself. Holmes (by then a Supreme Court justice) believed the law should be crafted pursuant to the economic tenor of the times, without regard to conscience, morality, politics, self-dealing or art.

Holmes was a quick study. He had already formed his opinion about each case before arguments of both sides were even finished. The other justices took months to give the impression that they had spent a long time thinking about a case, so as to come to the correct decision. That’s still the situation today.

The reason some justices make everyone wait, is that they use the delay as a form of control. Or, they are putting on a show of discussing weighty issues because they have big egos– they think they’re saving the world with their decisions, though some issues are not a matter of life and death, and affect only a tiny percentage of ordinary Americans. Anyway, Holmes’ fellow justices complained that his writings were too brief, so his meanings might be misconstrued.

As is well known, in early 1932, the United State was suffering extreme economic hardships from the Great Depression, at which time Holmes humbly realized he was no longer mentally competent to do the job of Supreme Court justice. The nation shuddered at the scary prospect that President Herbert Hoover got to choose the next justice. Ordinary Americans were crying out for more regulation. The Court already had a solid conservative majority, and adding another conservative would worsen most Americans’ situations by (excuse the cliche) making the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.

Read the book to learn much, much more about the lives of the Holmes family members.

Fifty Ways to Make You Suffer – BONUS POST

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It’s business as usual in TrumpWorld, with numerous ongoing legal battles, factional infighting, turnover of personnel, and financial markets in turmoil. Trump revels in his power to cause all this chaos. Occasionally, there is a big announcement of good news timed for maximum ratings and distraction (from the fact that the president is senile, and from really serious political issues), that gets analyzed to death. There might even be some later this week, as the religious holidays are over, and May is a “sweep” month. But today, we suffer.

FIFTY WAYS TO MAKE YOU SUFFER

sung to the tune of “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” with apologies to Paul Simon and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Trump’s a dictator whose likeness has been evolving for centuries.
He’s given his name undying fame in posterity.
He hinders you in your struggle to be free.

He’s got fifty ways to make you suffer.

It’s really his habit to be unsavory.
Fox’s overpaid noisemakers are beholden to his slavery.
His crimes feed on themselves with no risk, no wavering. He gets off scot-free.

Fifty ways to make you suffer. Fifty ways to make you suffer.

Supreme Court he did pack, Jack.
Imposed the GOP’s plan, Stan.
The world’s his toy, Roy.
No one gets themselves free.

His mouthpieces convey his fuss, Gus.
His undue influence is too much.
But his senility is key, Lee.
From his grip, we’ll soon be free.

Supreme Court he did pack, Jack.
Imposed the GOP’s plan, Stan.
The world’s his toy, Roy.
Shame on GOP.

His mouthpieces convey his fuss, Gus.
His undue influence is too much.
But his senility is key, Lee.
From his grip, we’ll soon be free.

Talking heads teasing you again and again.
Ignoring the mean phonies, will help you keep your head.
Though it is excruciating,
the way Trump’s act, is tolerated fifty ways.

GOP sends its claques, flacks, and sycophants with quips.
Reagan’s Morning in America to Bush’s Read My Lips.
Then MAGA dissed it.
With a boatload of ugly clips.

He’s got fifty ways to make you suffer. Fifty ways to make you suffer.

Supreme Court he did pack, Jack.
Imposed the GOP’s plan, Stan.
The world’s his toy, Roy.
No one gets themselves free.

His mouthpieces convey his fuss, Gus.
His undue influence is too much.
But his senility is key, Lee.
From his grip, we’ll soon be free.

Supreme Court he did pack, Jack.
Imposed the GOP’s plan, Stan.
The world’s his toy, Roy.
Shame on GOP.

His mouthpieces convey his fuss, Gus.
His undue influence is too much.
But his senility is key, Lee.
From his grip, we’ll soon be free.

No Way But to Fight

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The Book of the Week is “No Way But to Fight, George Foreman and the Business of Boxing” by Andrew R.M. Smith, published in 2020.

Born in 1949 in the Houston, Texas area, Foreman grew up in poverty in a large family. His future looked dim, as his schooling had been scant and his leisure activity had consisted of mugging people on the streets in the middle of the night.

Beginning in the mid-1960’s, president LBJ’s federal job-training program, called the Job Corps, arguably saved Foreman’s life. Various mentors who had acquired diverse life experiences- military veterans, counselors, coaches and teachers– supervised about two thousand troubled teens. Foreman learned about boxing, and won the first tournament he fought, in January 1967.

Foreman’s coach got him excused from the military draft for an undisclosed reason. As is well known, rival boxer Muhammad Ali became religious and resisted the draft. Through the decades, compulsory military service hindered plenty of careers of professional athletes, but they (Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Louis and Roger Staubach, to name four) didn’t make a public issue of it. The government wanted to punish Ali on behalf of those athletes– regardless of his ethnicity– because it was unfair to them, that Ali could continue to develop his career while their lives were disrupted or put at risk.

Ali obviously turned this into a civil rights issue, but other people considered him to be “cheating” as he was getting an unfair advantage over his competition. It is interesting to see how, through the decades, the conversation has shifted on how some Americans define “cheating” in professional sports.

Performance-enhancing drugs (regulated in international competitions but not terribly strictly in American professional sports) have quietly disappeared from the discussion in the United States, as a million conspirators have pushed gender-issues to the forefront– as the next form of cheating. That just shows how easily human beings can be brainwashed by propaganda!

Anyway, yet another turning point in Foreman’s career, occurred at the dawn of the 1970’s, when he met Dick Sadler. The boxing promoter was a rare bird– did business on a handshake and wasn’t as greedy as his competition.

Boxing through the 1970’s was a complicated business, considering all the stakeholders involved: the fighters themselves, their entourages, event-venues, event-broadcasting outlets, the various professional groups that organized the matches, and the political entities that regulated and taxed the aforementioned.

In the early years of his career as an amateur, Foreman was criticized for choosing to fight easy opponents. In March 1974, he was also labeled unpatriotic for scheduling a match outside the United States (in Venezuela), even after his tax-avoidance and financial-related divorce troubles had ended. The international media stories arising from that fight, smacked of the poor diplomatic relationship between America and Venezuela (for oil-related reasons).

Read the book to learn much more about the boxers of Foreman’s generation who began their careers in the 1960’s, the history of the industry through the 1990’s, and Foreman’s careers.

Retaliation – BONUS POST

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Here’s a little song about what’s going on in the Trump camp.

RETALIATION

sung to the tune of “Fascination” with apologies to the Human League and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Impeachment a third TIME is needed. Arguments already made.
The plans of evil billionaires are heeded.
A powerless Vance, is dismayed.
Just looking to get rid of elections, in a modern, oppressive way.
The culmination of all-powerful connections, for profit and for play.

And so the opposition burns, and Trump’s enemies fall down.
And the propaganda churns, eveRY day.

Keep seeding retaliation, lashing-out, spinning, distractions all along.
Keep seeding retaliation, stiffing, menacing, moving on.

Well, truth has disappeared in the telling.
The story is so old.
And a golfing, senile Trump is raging.
Democracy’s on hold.

And so the opposition burns, and Trump’s enemies fall down.
And the propaganda churns, eveRY day.

Keep seeding retaliation, lashing-out, spinning, distractions all along.
Keep seeding retaliation, stiffing, menacing, moving on.

And so the opposition burns, and Trump’s enemies fall down.
And the propaganda churns, eveRY day.

Keep seeding retaliation, lashing-out, spinning, distractions all along.
Keep seeding retaliation, stiffing, menacing, moving on.

Keep seeding retaliation, lashing-out, spinning, distractions all along.
Keep seeding retaliation, stiffing, menacing, moving on.

Keep seeding retaliation, lashing-out, spinning, distractions all along.
Keep seeding retaliation, stiffing, menacing, moving on…

Blind Spots

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“The media clapped like seals congratulating the researchers. Reporters amplified the study’s conclusion, even thought they hadn’t yet seen the actual data… the media promoted whatever health authorities said, rarely challenging them or publishing quotes from dissenting experts.”

For decades now, such are the sound bites emanating from communications sources, telling people about alleged medical-research results or medical recommendations; information that is distorted at best, and is even harmful to the population.

The Book of the Week is “Blind Spots, When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What it Means for Our Health” by Marty Makary, MD, published in 2024. This slightly sloppily edited volume contained anecdotes of wrongheaded messaging of medical “experts” that resulted in numerous needless deaths and ruined lives. Not to mention lawsuits.

In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) told Americans that an infant should not be fed any peanut butter or products with any peanuts– as the child would develop a peanut allergy. The AAP should have made the opposite recommendation, as their reasoning was backwards.

Makary saw that the AAP’s board of messengers were mostly dieticians and had little or no immunology knowledge! For fifteen years, many pediatricians blindly obeyed the AAP, and told their patients to avoid peanuts. Those patients developed extreme (life-threatening) peanut allergies that had to be treated with exorbitantly priced EpiPens. The experts with whom Makary spoke– who claimed to know what caused a peanut allergy, were later promoted and got awards in their respective careers.

The above happens frequently in the medical industry. For decades, arrogant medical authorities also told people that opioids aren’t addictive. To combat a myth such as this, the author and his colleagues started a website, “Sensible Medicine” but a drawback is that one of the types of people (a closed-minded, cocky medical professional) who could benefit from the site, won’t read it!

The author wrote that Big Pharma shies away from funding research that doesn’t involve intellectual property from which it can make big bucks. Thus, funding was stopped for a non-mRNA technology flu vaccine (one covering many flu strains)– because it wouldn’t have to be administered annually, and wouldn’t pay royalties to anyone.

Meanwhile, the media continue to spout their staged and scripted reality shows of political soap-operas whose issues affect a tiny percentage of ordinary Americans, while America’s broken healthcare system continues to cause the deaths of, and bankrupt numerous people every day.

Read the book to learn of many more healthcare abominations borne of greed, and dogma, and how healthy skepticism is a good thing.

Criminality – BONUS POST

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It is interesting to note that the late president Richard Nixon has extremely few, if any entities (such as roadways, bridges, dams, tunnels, buildings, schools or research institutions) named after him. It appears that by imposing revenge-tariffs, Donald Trump is striving to be the anti-Richard-Nixon– trying to escape criminality-comparisons so that he won’t suffer the same fate.

Two differences between Nixon and Trump include: In 1972, Nixon initiated trade with China, and he was a heavy drinker. Trump revels in his absolute power to wreak havoc on the world’s financial markets! Don’t worry, there won’t be a Great Depression, because nowadays, America has insurance of financial institutions, and bailouts.

Nevertheless, speaking of criminality, here’s a list of presidents on whose ultimate authority rested,

post-WWII wrongdoing– NOT unethical behavior, but explicit law-breaking and crimes against humanity, which consists mostly of Cold War / CIA shenanigans, blood-for-oil, or both, secret weapons-research, war-related crimes (genocide and atrocities, in terms of deaths, destruction and devastation), which shall hereinafter be referred to as “classified crimes” if they have yet to be declassified; and other kinds of crimes, from MOST to LEAST [president: kinds of crimes]:

1) Nixon: war, political/election, financial
2) George W. Bush: classified, political/election, financial, treasonous (draft dodger)
3) LBJ: war, political
4) Truman: war– BUT arguably ended WWII sooner than otherwise via nuclear weapons, thus limiting the deaths and devastation; however, arguably unnecessarily wasted lives in Korea.

Due to lack of data on classified crimes, the rest of this list is debatable; plus, it is difficult, if not impossible to determine the number of deaths and amount of destruction and devastation DIRECTLY caused by all the other kinds of crimes. It stands to reason that the shorter a president’s time in office, the less likely he was to order the committing of classified crimes.

5: Reagan: war, treasonous, political
6: Eisenhower: war– at minimum, regime changes in Guatemala and other countries
7: Trump: classified, political/election (impeached twice), financial (adjudged guilty of 34 felony counts), more-likely-than-not sex crimes, treasonous (draft dodger)
8: George H.W. Bush: war
9: Bill Clinton: classified, treasonous (draft dodger and lied under oath about adultery), more-likely-than-not sex crimes
10: Barack Obama: classified, born in Hawaii and became president (but adjudged not guilty)
11: JFK: war
12: Biden: classified
13: Ford: war
14: Carter: ?

As can be seen, the above consists of seven Republicans and seven Democrats. Nonetheless, if one adds up the numbers of the rankings for each party (with the LOWER total signifying a HIGHER level of criminality) the Republicans total 42; the Democrats, 63. Hmm.

Anyway, now here’s a little ditty about the latest law-breaker in the White House.

ALWAYS UNWORTHY

sung to the tune of “She’s Always A Woman” with apologies to Billy Joel and to whomever else the rights may concern; Trump is unworthy of the temper tantrums, hissy fits and conniptions thrown by anyone who is wasting their time on him; this includes everyone who pays attention to him.

He rewrites history.
He inherited his rise.
He’s ruined-America’s fate with his countless lies.
He’s mesmerized his base with his demagoguery.
He behaves like a child,
and he’s always unworthy to me.

He thinks he’s tough.
In a second he’ll betray you.
His billionaires snoop while his media deceives.
His victims all quiver and he keeps criminals free.
Yeah, he’s caused so much grief, and he’s always unworthy to me.

Oh, he thinks only of himself.
He gets what he wants.
He’s led a life of crime.

Oh, history has borne out:
The best liars win.
We’ll reverse course in time.

He’ll promise from his actions you’ll get rich quick.
Then he’ll take away the carrot and give you the stick.
And he’ll hire loyalty over competence, ev’ry time.
He blames everyone else when his messes are all on your dime.

Oh, he thinks only of himself.
He gets what he wants.
He’s led a life of crime.

Oh, history has borne out:
The best liars win.
We’ll reverse course in time.

Oh, he’s losing his mind.
To his wannabes, he’s cool.
They’re eager to please him.
They’re all his fools.
And he can’t be convicted, he’s bought his degree.

And the most he will do is throw riches to his crew,
and he’s always unworthy to me.

No Better Time

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The Book of the Week is “No Better Time– The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet” by Molly Knight Raskin, published in 2013. This short, slightly sloppily edited volume whose title exaggerates, described the brief life of a dot-com startup genius.

Danny Lewin was born in May 1970 in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. His family moved to Israel when he was fourteen. He enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, and then he moved back to the United States to attend school at MIT.

While in school, with a friend, Lewin helped develop a technological innovation within the big-picture innovation of the whole Internet. Initially, his dot-com business, named Akamai Technologies, provided the service of preventing of the crashing of the browser when: a video went viral or a website got overwhelmed with traffic, or a denial-of-service attack was launched against a website. Through algorithms, obviously, eventually, computer scientists discovered the required optimal number of servers communicating among themselves to maximize computing power to minimize latency and downtime.

In the second half of the 1990’s, worldwide usage of the Internet, a decentralized network of potentially infinite networks, was in its infancy. This meant, for ordinary users, downloading of data was extremely slow. Impatience was growing in leaps and bounds as time-saving devices (like office software) were, too; resulting in “irrational exuberance” over securities sold to the public that funded dot-com startups. The likely reason Akamai still exists today while so many other tech startups failed, is that there was an actual, valuable service behind it!

By spring 2000, after receiving ginormous funding from its IPO, Akamai’s customers’ servers collectively numbered more than 2,750 in more than one hundred fifty networks in forty-five nations. At the book’s writing, Akamai controlled between fifteen and thirty percent of the world’s Internet traffic.

Read the book to learn much more about Lewin, the people who helped him, and his startup.