Observations

 1.  On this Texas school shooting.....the more that is laid out on the school master plan of security being totally ineffective, the lack of action by local police for an hour, and the shooter-kid himself....the less I believe of the story.  

2.  Russians agreeing to allow age 40 and over Russian men to enlist in the military?  Makes sense....bunch of drunken guy taken off the street....fed into the military machine and dead within six weeks.  

3.  Southern Baptist folks released a 205-page summary of ministers (all men) who sexually abused folks.  Seems like a fair number of them probably need to freshen their resumes and find real work.

4.  70-percent of independent-voters say Biden is too old.  Generally, I'd have a physical test for future folks in this position.  Give a car with a flat tire, and just say you got 15 minutes to change it.  Fail?  You don't run for office.

5.  Someone asked the ATF Director what a 'assault weapon' was, and he couldn't respond.  Kinda like that woman question.....asking folks to define a woman.  I have the feeling in twelve months....if you asked some political guy to define 'tramp', 'whore', 'drunk' or 'weeded-up'.....they'd just grin and say they can't define the terms.

6.  Just a wild guess, but I'll predict that the entire police force of Uvalde, TX is likely to be resigned, let-go, or terminated within six months.  

What Was MKUltra In The End?

 Shortly after WW II....the CIA got a tasking.  Basically, after examining the Japanese and German experiments going on....the US took what they had and built a 'lab' of sorts....to continue developments.  

Key areas?  I'd suggest seven areas:

1.  Develop substances that helped impulsiveness and poor thinking.

2.  Develop substances that improved your perception.

3.  Develop substances that doubled-up the effect of booze.

4.  Find useful ways of hypnosis.

5.  Develop ways to 'fight-off' torture or brainwashing. 

6.  Find products/substances that produce amnesia.  

7.  Find ways (substances) to make you dependent upon a function or person.

For about twenty years....the CIA went at this mission, then realized public attention was going to arrive shortly.....destroying a great deal of the paperwork. 

The development of these 'tools'?  There's a lot of discussion that has come up over the past fifty years....that various people walked out the backdoor.....taking their 'tools' to various companies/individuals, and that MKUltra got 'loose' in public.

The Unabomber?  Well....Ted Kaczynski was rumored to have been on one of these experimental efforts with MKUltra.  Same is suggested for Sirhan Sirhan (RFK's killer).  Charles Manson?  Yep....he was connected in various ways.  

In the end, as much as the CIA thought they were doing a good deed.....they were simply opening up a bigger door to a mess which cannot ever be cleaned up.  

Age of Maturity

I travel a lot (at least before Covid).  So I tend to notice 'age of maturity' a good bit.

This week, the topic of ages for purchasing weapons came up (Texas), and it was an interesting thing to ponder.

Folks tend to 'mark' age 18 as this mythical age crossing....where you can vote, buy a weapon, buy booze (at least in some states), etc.

In some countries....it's age 21.

In Germany, you can buy beer/wine at 16, but hard booze at 18.

Up until the French Revolution.....the legal age of consent to marriage was 12 years old for girls, and 14 for boys.   After 1804, they set the age of consent for girls at 15, and boys at 18.  That rule sat around until 2006....where everyone was set at 18.

The old Aztec civilization set male maturity at 20 to 22.

Finding someone under the 18 being responsible for their actions?  I'd say two out of three in the fifteen to eighteen year old group probably could handle full-up adult responsibility.  The other third?  They probably wouldn't earn my respect even at age twenty.

But here's the thing.  If you say age 21 is the age for buying/using a gun....then you are saying in general....their maturity is not there.....so why allow the 'kid' to vote?

The booze rules?  Shouldn't this accompany the problem as well?  

What if we just mandated no gun purchases, no votes, no booze until age 20?  Would folks have heartburn over that?

While discussing all of this....shouldn't we bring up that most kids are educationally prepared to wrap up school by age sixteen?  If you tested most kids....I'd say almost forty to fifty percent are ready to move on by age sixteen.

There's going to be this age discussion and the more you open it up.....the more likely that people will throw a bunch of things (like voting and buying booze) onto the discussion.  

There are a fair number of kids already at age twelve....fully pepped-up and roaring to have independence....make their own decisions and to get out of the 'control' of parents.  I'd say we need to let the system work, and just say at age 12....let them run 'free' and see how thing progress.  Yes, voting, driving, and working.