A 'Gift' From Our Friends?

It's one of those odd stories that will leave you pondering.

You go and leave a balloon up in the upper atmosphere....to gather particles to examine later.

It comes down, and you do analysis of various things within the filter.  So, you get down microscopic things....thinner than a hair, and you come to this little ball....made out of titanium with a biological material oozing out.

Man-made?  They can't say that.  This would have been way up in the upper atmosphere.  Who goes around making titanium balls with an empty core....which you fill up with a biological material?  So far, some British scientists and Nobel Prize winners have not been able to come up with much....except they don't think it was originated from the Earth....but they can't really prove that point.

Why pick titanium?  Corrosion resistance.   If you wanted to preserve something for awful long time....not just years or centuries.....but eons.....you'd use titanium.

So I come to my humble opinion.  Let's say you were a fairly advanced race and knew of a thousand planets where life of some sort might survive.....but you assume that none exists there.....you might want to 'blast' the planet with a bucket of BB's.....titanium BB's.....loaded with various things that would evolve and plant themselves.  Trees, shrubs, bacteria, grass, marijuana, peanuts, and so on.  Whether they work or not....doesn't matter.  And you wouldn't worry about long term development because you aren't thinking of a 1,000 years or 10,000, or even 100,000 years.  You are thinking millions of years.

Unless someone comes up to prove it's only seven years old and has to be a Earth-made item.....it's pretty much going to result in everyone believing there's another intelligent life out there, and they have some type of agenda.

If you seed a thousand planets......you might want to eventually come out and check your success rate.

What Is Not the Government's Job?

This is one of those essays that I turn out, where offer some brief bit of wisdom.

It is bothersome to some degree....to be told over and over throughout a day via various news networks, newspapers, chat forums, and blogs.....of what the government perceives as it's "job".

It really isn't the government's job to create government jobs to help lessen the unemployment situation of the nation.

It isn't the government's job to determine your kid's outcome in life....other than providing some basic education across the board.

It isn't the government's job to run banks....other than ensuring banks don't shut down because of incompetence and you lose your savings (up to $250,000).  Beyond that $250,000 with that bank....if in a savings or checking account.....yeah.....the government has no responsibility and you pretty much are screwed.

It isn't the government's job to ensure enough carrots, tomatoes, pumpkins, or turnips are grown in America.....nor is their job to ensure enough American-grown beef, pork, or chicken are delivered to groceries to ensure our survival.

It isn't the government's job to ensure accuracy with news networks for the 6PM nightly news that you enjoy.

It isn't the government's job to ensure enough bandwidth exists for you to download Stargate Universe, Chinese porn, or NASCAR racing events....to get delivered to your smart-phone in the backyard garage.

It isn't the government's job to deliver four-star, three-star, two-star, or even one-star medical opportunities to you, or ensure you live a long and semi-productive life.

It's not the government's job to ensure you don't over-eat on bacon and die by age fifty.

It's not the government's job to monitor 3.7 million school teaches in America....to prevent them from student-teacher sex romps or fake credentials.  Your local principal or board of education are more than capable....have enough 'powers'....and can be easily fired if they can't do the job.

It's not the government's job to limit the size or shape of the container of Mountain Dew that you consume each day.  If you are stupid enough to consume a 44-ounce Dew amount each morning......it's your screw-up, not the government's screw-up.

It's not the government's job to rig up NCAA bowl games to benefit some governmental priority.  We already have enough NCAA dimwits who can rig up the bowl business to benefit Auburn, Texas Tech, University of Alabama, and Georgia to get somewhere in the final ten.

It's not the government's job to find Bigfoot....stop Bigfoot....terminate Bigfoot.....or even prove Bigfoot even exists.

It's not the government's job to order someone to marry someone, or to find you some suitable partner to accept your eccentric ways, or approve of eighty-eight kinky ways of delightful pleasure.

It's not the government's job to determine foolishness, regulate provocative talk, or determine the best place in the backyard for a septic tank.

It's not the government's job to provide a roof over your head, provide three hot meals a day (unless you signed up as a Army Private), or ensure a world-class airport in your state with direct-flights to Daytona or Aruba.

It's not the government's job to ensure your kid speaks Finnish, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or French.  To be honest, it's not even their job to ensure your kid speaks English....other than you got to do something with English literature graduates....they can't just work evenings at 7-11 or run the fry machine at McDonalds.

It's not the government's job to bring culture, art, proper eating habits, or fairness across to the public.
Sadly, there's no 'boss' that you can really hold responsible for the government's job.....no one that you can fire.  If you suggest the President....think about the various gimmicks in effect to hinder you from firing him.  We are stuck with something that no one ever dreamed to be this big....this massive....and this dangerous.

Shoals Amusement Park?

My brother brought this to my attention.  Folks around the Shoals area got pepped up yesterday because some folks came out and announced they are building a three-BILLION-dollar theme park in the local area.

What's generally said is that it'll be around a 1,400-acre park site....construction to start soon and wrap up by 2019 (open for business).  The park would center around music......yeah.....that kinda left me wondering how this would work up into some money-making operation.

The company did indicate that this will bring 20,000 jobs into the northwest Bama region.....which would be a major deal.  Although, if you sit and think about it....the vast majority would be a minimum wage situation....but folks around this area would not complain too much.

Scam?  Well....I did some reading on this and most locals have doubts over the announcement.  There is major company in the US which these guys claim to be a part of....which build amusement parks.  The doubts come because of recent failures.

If you look at Opreyland.....it just didn't have a sustainable business situation, so it was closed.  If you drew a 500-mile map from the region....what amusement parks that exist....are marginally surviving at the present.

Typically, you need three things for an amusement park to thrive.  First, there needs to be secondary things in the area to do....which the Shoals can claim the Tennessee River and five-star hunting....that's about it.  Second, you need an interstate highway connection.....which does not exist in the Shoals.  Third, you need some thriving and robust airport....which the best you can say is that three or four flights a day work out of the Shoals Airport.....with planes mostly big enough to handle twenty passengers and flies into Atlanta or Memphis.

Scam?  Well....Bama folks are skeptical (for obvious reasons).  In this case....the big show at the hotel, along with company involvement....gets folks past the first level and makes them think it might come true.

Location?  Well....that's a secret for another week or two.  They don't want to lay everything out there yet.

My humble guess is that they will try to use cheap farming property south of the Tennessee River, near Highway 72, going between the Shoals and Huntsville.  They might go further west and try to use the Natchez Trace Parkway....with cheap property all around the area but a good fifteen miles from the Shoals or the newly built golf resort.

The best I can say is that it's 'real' so far and might actually happen.  The profit game from a three-billion-dollar theme park?  Man, you'd have to have 10,000 folks a day coming in....staying a couple of days....and spending lots of money around on different things (golf, fishing, casino operations, drinking, food, etc).  I just don't see 10,000 folks coming daily to the Shoals for some theme park.  Sorry.

School Agendas

This was a quiz provided in Wisconsin to a high school civics class....in the past month or two.  It was supposed to gear a kid to think and know various political groups.....with a simple sentence attached to each.

The sixteen-year old kid came home....handed the sheet to his mom and asked what exactly was "wrong" and how is this explained.  Well..mom looked over the test and just was a bit shocked.  It's a bogus class exam which tends to push some kid into thinking various positive things or negative things about a political group....remarkably, against the Republicans.

It's hard for me to envision how life would be today in Bama....if I were in some high school history or civics class....and how it would relate to 1975-era education.

I admit....it was almost impossible for our ninth-grade teacher to get across the concept of communism and socialism.  'This is good' and 'this is bad'....as I can remember the class agenda for the early 1970s.  Bad guys were typically communists.....as I can remember the slant of the class.  If you asked any of the twenty-five kids why communists were bad...the answer would have been simply 'memorize' the answers and just get past the quiz......you don't have time to waste on really grasping something.

Teaching the class over Republicans, Democrats or Green politics?  I'd take a guess that you might find six kids out of a hundred today....that might be able to define some explanation....and the rest would ask if this had anything to do with the Civil War, Roman history or dinosaurs.

How important is it to define liberals, conservatives, moderates, Republicans, fascists, dictatorships, communists and such?  To be honest.....if you cornered a hundred folks in some mall....ages eighteen to sixty-five....less than fifty percent could give you a decent description of each.  Some Senators can't even define a fascist or socialist....without getting some note from their handler.  You could drag some PhD dimwit up onto a chat forum....with him giving a ten-minute presentation on the evils of socialism....then discover that he's never been outside of the US in his life....so it's all book material and no real practical knowledge.

I have no idea what the agenda was in this Wisconsin class.  If  I were to speculate.....I'd say the teacher had some agenda given to him or her, and they weren't bright enough to grasp that.  They just used some college-level test that Professor Gus gave them three years ago and think it might be worth reusing for a high-school level exam.

As for the events in this case?  The principal of the school would later tell the mother that this didn't count for any grade, and it appears that the exam will be yanked (never to be used again).....and you get the feeling that they were a bit peeved that this type of stupidity showed up in their school and they have to face some fury over a stupid mistake by a teacher.  

This Brian Williams Discussion

In terms of rating how significant some stories are in the news today.....I'd consider this NBC anchor guy....Brian Williams....and his story to be a "three" on a scale of one to ten.  Yeah, it really begs some questions, but it's the network's issue to look over and feel the heat about.

Here is the odd part about Brian Williams because I spent some time looking at his timeline.

The guy finishes high school and briefly attends a local community college. Then he goes to the Catholic University of America, and then he transfers over to George Washington University in the District of Columbia.  He admits....he's got roughly eighteen total classes finished....so no degree.  Oddly, he hooks up as an intern with the Jimmy Carter White House, and that's the end of schooling for him.

The cost of GW University in DC?  Just one year....tuition only....is $48,000 today.  You can guesstimate what it was in late-1970s....but it wasn't cheap.

So, he moves on (without a degree) to Kansas.  He works for a year for KOAM-TV....a minimum wage rookie.  A year into this....he gets hired for WTTG (a independent network in DC at the time....it belongs to Fox now).

After roughly a year at the DC situation....he gets hired to moves to Philly for WCAU....an NBC flag-station in the local area.  It's a pretty big step....just two years prior being a minor no-name guy with a mid-Kansas TV station.

Roughly four years later....he's brought to New York City, and part of the CBS team there.  In six years....he's picked up as a weekend guy for NBC and is now a major player.

A couple of months ago....Williams ends up signing a five-year contract with NBC....for roughly $10 million a year.

You just start to look at this guy and how he moves around every year or two, and wonder about his resume and what exactly it says.

The chief problems?  Lets say you terminate Williams.....which would be the logical point to take in a case like this....what bill do you get stuck with?  He'll take you to court and by the contract.....he's entitled to a fair sum of money.  Maybe the contract allows for them to pay him off with $20 million....maybe he's entitled to the whole sum.  No one has said much over that.

The other problem is who you bring in....Matt Lauer of the Today Show?  I sat and read several stories which note the back-up plan is now considered to be Tom Brokaw coming in for a month or two while they hire up another wiz-kid....or bring Matt Lauer into the situation and then play games over who is hired to replace Matt on the Today Show.

Matt as the evening anchor guy for NBC?  Well....yeah.  Maybe if you did a couple of shots of booze prior to the evening news, and try to avoid hitting the mute button constantly....it'd all work out.

But the real question is.....does any of this matter?  I mean....Brian was telling bogus stories....but it's an accepted part of the position.....which anchor has not made up various bogus stories over the past decade.  Since Harry Reasoner, Frank Reynolds and Harold K. Smith have all passed on.....we really don't have news anchors at night....we have some story-teller-wizards who pick up stories to emphasize or de-emphasize.

My advice....if channel seven is offering Andy Griffith or Judge Judy episodes while NBC news is on....you might want to check them out.....or consider resodding the backyard.

Why We Still Need Scientists

This past week....the EPA came out with a full report (207 pages) and new rules over wood-burning stoves.

Yeah, wood-burning stoves.

Yeah, actual real wood-burning stoves.

I would strongly recommend that you click above and go through the first dozen pages and note the various graphic charts, statistical analysis, and expert opinion over wood-burning stoves.

For roughly 240 years....America survived without any regulation or such....on wood-burning stoves.  Now?  Roughly 300 pages of new regulations will come into play.

Who produced the full report (207 pages) on wood stoves?  Well, that's an odd thing....there's no names attached to it. No professors, no engineers, no doctors, no PhD folks, and no science folks.

The end of the document does have a number of pages to cite where they gathered their data, which seems to be legit.

Where do you get experts on wood stoves?  If I asked my brother, he'd likely lead me over to Sand Mountain or some remote area of Tennessee where folks have a long and distinguished career in wood stoves.  They'd cite the best wood to burn....the way to ensure your stove lasts for decades....and how to properly clean it.  Respiratory talk?  Well....they'd ask how you vented it and if the chimney was properly cleared once a year.  Respiratory talk from this report?  Oh, there's fancy graphical charts and various talk about bad things that could occur....if you were stupid about hooking it up.

The general problem here?  Whoever wrote this.....probably won't appear in public.....nor appear on CNN or the Today Show.  It's probably a college professor from California, who has never been in a house with a wood stove in his or her life.

The necessity of government involvement in wood stove management?  Why limit it to just this.....why not include out-houses, or home-gardens as well?

Forty years ago.....if you'd been hired by some governmental agency and told to write such a report.....you would have just laughed and walked out of the room.  The truth is....we have way too many scientists now standing around with no real job or anything to do, and the government answer is to produce reports like this.

Bama, Monday, and the Gay Marriage Thing

Come Monday, unless the Supreme Court steps in, Alabama will be put upon to allow gay marriage.  No one is sure of anything much.  The Supreme Court has shown no tendency to get involved, and just sat back on this issue for a while.

In the state?  It's hard to tell the general reaction.  If you read most newspapers....there's the anti-gay marriage crowd out in full force, and there's the pro-gay marriage crowd out in full force.  Right now, based on news reports....folks are expecting between twenty and fifty couples appearing to get their one-sex marriage license on Monday.

Several state and county judges have said they won't do such a ceremony.....and they indicate that it's not written down to force them to perform such a ceremony.  The way to get around the court order?  These guys won't do anyone.....not straight couples.....not gay couples....no one.

Bama state law says that anyone who is a resident of the state can apply for a license, and be married in any of the sixty-seven counties.  Who can marry you?  Any pastor or minister of a recognized religion within the state, or county/state judges (active and retired).  How many of such individuals exist?  I'd take a guess between six and eight thousand such individuals within the state (four and a half-million residents).

Yeah, we have a fair number of churches in the state.  Bama folks openly brag about their churches, their ministers, and their various paths to heaven (even if they do commit sins, drink hard on Saturday evenings, and gamble a bit).

How many judges and ministers will refrain from marrying gay couples?  I will guess eighty-percent will find some reason.  The participating judges against this....might all just say they won't marry anyone. The ministers?  Well....how would you force them? Fed law?  Non-existent.  State law?  Non-existent.  Some fed judge just ordering you to do something, without a law to back him up?  It'd drag this all out into another bigger mess....if you ask me.

If this went forward.....how many gay couples would be married by the end of 2015?  I'd take a humble guess on this, and assume that about 500 such marriages would occur by 1 January 2016.  We'd likely peak out this year, and probably see a yearly sum of 250-odd marriages from 2016 on.....with at least fifty gay couples a year getting divorced as we got a year or two into this.

Church acceptance?  Being from Bama, I'd say two or three religions would have zero problems with this.  The bulk of the rest would find folks pretty focused on "no"....firing ministers who suggested that they move on, and getting deacons drawn into chat forums that just didn't get any real solution on the table.  You might find a dozen-odd religions who could be drawn into a long debate and locals either accept the idea or leave the participation of the church.  2015 might be one of those years when some churches find themselves with only half the membership that they had last year....because of their stand for gay marriage or stand against gay marriage.

On the religious view.....I'd take a guess that a handful of newly created religions will come to exist....with modern topics fully accepted by the minister and his deacons.  Yeah, you might have a pro-gay marriage church.....fully supportive of marijuana....approving of various lifestyles (bondage or freaky piercings) that most Bama folks frown upon  and able to support a membership roll of forty-four members.

I'd take a guess that the local newspaper from my home county on Monday...will have one reporter standing there at the county clerk's window all day.....waiting for one single gay couple to appear and get noted in the newspaper as the first such couple in Lauderdale county.  Oddly, right behind the noted and highly reported couple will be another couple....some guy in his mid-thirties and a fifteen-year old gal who has mama's permission to marry Conrad (the local goat enthusiast).  It might be a better story to tell....mid-thirties guy and a fifteen year old wife....a local goat farm family to be.....but the big focus would be on Misty and Candy (two Burger King employees) who are both forty years old and of one particular sex.  If you ask me.....no one much will care about the two lesbians getting married and would prefer to hear about the goat farmer and his teenage wife.

Well....it's all good, as we say in Bama.  Marriages come and go, churches hire and fire ministers, and political folks fall into significant scandals on a weekly basis within the state.  Life goes on.