Sunday, April 29, 2012

L. A. Riots - 20 Years Ago

20 years ago I was 32. I was young with a wife and three young kids. We had just bought our first house and I spent 4 fours a day on the road to go to work. I had just begun to make a name for myself in my chosen profession. I was also at ground zero for when the riots began. I watched as crowds gathered after the verdict had been read. I was there just before the guard shack in front of the central police station was torched, I heard about it as I rode home. That night I heard there was some looting near where my grandmother lived, I got my gun and drove to her apartment to make sure she was safe. I drove past National Guard units who were being brought in.

I spent the night at my grandmothers and then drove into work. I decided to have a cup of coffee and a cigarette, so I stood in the middle of the street looking at the National Guard vehicles and the fires. The street was empty other than that and a few burned out and overturned cars. I remember thinking, this is my city and I will stand here and finish my coffee. It didn't hurt having my 38 on me. Later that day, I went to the top of one of the taller buildings and looked around me. It looked like a scene from the first Iraq war, there were fires as far as you could see.

By day two of the riots it stopped being about Rodney King and just became an excuse for people to steal. People in BMWs pulling into stores to stead big screen televisions. It was one of the most surreal times in my life. My kids didn't really understand what was going on and I didn't want them to worry about me; but, I had a job to do.

It seems like forever since then. So much has happened. After the riots I think we had all had enough and city quieted down. That is how these things often happen. A blow up and then everyone has to go back to their life. Change comes over time, I have seen it in my life. When I was 6 my parents drove us across country. A black man was not allowed in one of the restaurants because he was black. When I was in school they were just beginning busing in Los Angeles. Today we have a black president. 50 years ago they wouldn't let him use their restrooms.

We are on this earth but for a short time. Forgiveness and service to others really needs to be our approach. I taught about that yesterday at church. Anyways, just some rambling memories of a different time.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

I Removed a Comment

I removed a comment that I had recently published. It made claims that I have no way of verifying about someone. I don't believe I can allow people to make negative comments about someone that I cannot verify or am unwilling to make myself. This is my blog and I am responsible for the content.

Like Sheep to the Slaughter

There is a call by many in this country to end the practice of treating corporations as people. The people calling for this change don't even understand the consequences or what it means legally. Their concern is that corporations contribute to political campaigns. These laws wont change that at all. What it will do is destroy small businesses.

When a corporation is given the status of personhood, then the owners (or stockholders) are only at risk for the amount of their investment. Lets say that you want to open a car wash. Four people loan you $50,000 each. In exchange you promise them 25% of the ownership until you pay them back with interest. Now, someone trips and breaks their leg at the car wash and sues you. Even though you have no control over the company, they could sue you for everything you own rather than just your interest in the company. That is the purpose of corporate personhood. Why is this important, it is important because people won't be able to start businesses and small businesses are where most job growth has occurred.

There is an organization called "Move To Amend" here is a link to an article by them. Vermont Becomes First State to Call for Amendment that Would Remove Corporations From Constitution. This is the sort of ill thought out, knee jerk reactions that happen when people who never paid attention to the laws suddenly think they get it, it is a type of mob mentality.

The funny thing is that most people calling for this change don't even know why they are against corporate personhood. They merely blindly repeat that corporations are not people.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

A Wedding

My middle child is getting married this weekend. I have many people ask me if I still believe in marriage after my wife's affairs. Yep, I still believe in marriage. Actually, I don't believe in anything short of marriage. I wish all my children to have long and loving marriages, I believe it is still possible.

I remember the day I got married. Most of the elders who attended my wedding are dead. For one it was the last time I saw him, a friend of the family for decades. He played the music at the wedding. I remember standing waiting to say "I do". It was a scary moment, waiting to commit myself to caring for another for life. Marriage is a journey taken with another, sometimes people decide to journey with someone else, it just happens. When you marry, you are supposed to ride out the hard times and we all face them.

I remember the day my middle child was born, her mother almost died in labor. I had to find another doctor to help her and I did. It turned out to be the same doctor who had delivered me and my brother. God works in mysterious ways. I remember the day we bought our first house, that was terrifying. I had to borrow the down payment and lived in fear that I would miss a payment. When I was married I was constantly afraid that I wouldn't be able to take care of my family; but, somehow I always did. Over 20 years of 14 hour days including a 4 hour a day commute and it wore me down. Sometimes I look back on it all and wonder how I ever did it. I remember when my oldest got married, I thought they pulled it off really well. It happened in the middle of the divorce and my ex and I focused on the wedding, we were there for our children, our family. I believe in family, that is why I still believe in marriage.

We don't know what life will bring or how we will handle life's little let downs. All we can do is continue trying. My wish for my child who is getting married is best said in two videos.

YouTube - The Carpenters - We've only just begun.

YouTube - The Carpenters - For all we know.

I pray to God that my children all have long and successful marriages and I congratulate my two eldest for having found people who love them and that they love back.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

More Articles on Gene Modifications

I want to start by saying that Blogger has changed it's format and I am not used to the changes so I may make some formatting or others mistakes. I found these articles and wanted to share them with my readers so that they would be current in understanding where science is at in regards to manipulating the genetic code to modify humans. The first article discusses how stem cells can be used to possibly cure AIDS. It also mentions how mice were genetically modified to grow human cells. Mail Online- Could a cure for AIDS be on the horizon? Genetically engineered human stem cells can hunt down and 'kill' HIV inside the body The second article is how California is about to begin stem cell testing on humans. The article says that some of the research is so far along that it could be submitted to the FDA for approval. This is not science fiction anymore, this is right around the corner. Central Coast News - Stem Cell Research is Moving Along in California The third article discusses how scientists in England secretly combined genes from humans and animals over the course of three years. Mail Online - 150 human animal hybrids grown in UK labs: Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years Finally we come to the fourth article. It is about the creation of synthetic DNA. The article says that someday will be able to create all kinds of new life forms. iO9 - We Come From the Future - XNA is synthetic DNA that’s stronger than the real thing So if you have read all of the articles you should understand that genetic modification is being done now and is ready to be used in human trials. The truth is that we have every reason to believe that this has already occurred in Russia, China and North Korea. What type of viruses might these new life forms create? We already know that their is an intent to modify humans to live twice as long. We are basically living the plot from "I Am Legend" and there is no telling where it will lead.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Alfred Villalobos and Federico Buenrostro and CalPers

I see that Alfred and Federico are in the news again. Mr. Villalobos had been a board member for CalPERS, the California State Pension. Here is a link to the L.A. Times Article.

Villalobos, Buenrostro targets of CalPERS fraud enforcement action

Whenever we find Mr. Villalobos, we should remember that he was a Deputy Mayor for the City of Los Angeles also. We also find this interesting article from Globes Israel's Business Arena regarding allegations made by the L.A. Times that Mr. Villalobos had been paid $16 million by CIM Group to get investments from CalPERS. Why is there a revolving door between CalPERS and Lacers where they exchange board members with ties to placement agents?

The Globes article - Delek Real Estate suitor CIM cited in corruption scandal

If you read the whole article you will discover that Elliot Broidy (the guy who plead guilty in New York's pension scandal) was in communication with CIM group. If all of these people are connected then why are they not all being investigated and charged?

Federico Buenrostro Jr.was the former CEO for CalPERS who left to work for Villalobos. Huh? Look, the Pimpernel works for the government, that should be obvious. I would work for one or two companies that I dealt with during my career; but, I would never represent them in dealing with my previous employer nor would I give them advice on how to deal with my former employer. I hired someone once, they had worked for another organization within our organization. I told them that I would never ask them for any information that was privileged when they obtained it.

I will probably not work in private industry when I retire. Odds are I am going to be more and more involved in the church; but the question is still valid. When should people be prohibited from working for one company in a particular industry and then taking a job with a competitor in the same industry? I think we can certainly say that if you are specifically hired to give up all of the privileged information that you have learned in exchange for money.

Have a great week.

Survival of the Most Pharmaceuticaly Wealthy

I have written about transhumanism before. This is the belief held by some that the next stage in evolution will be through the use of technology or gene therapy to make us faster, stronger, smarter and all around better. Well, to an extent college kids are doing that now. There is a drug called Adderall, it is used by people with attention deficit disorder because it is claimed that it helps them to concentrate. Well some smart college kids decided it might help them study and it is now common for kids to take these pills in order to pass their classes higher.

KTLA.com - The Adderall Advantage": Students Taking Big Risk for Good Grades

Let us for the sake of argument assume that Adderall actually works, what are the issues in taking the drug? In graduate school I learned some of the other students were taking uppers to help them study. I thought it was foolishness. So what if it works, would you take it just to pass a test? When you get a job, do you stop taking it or do you become dependent on it to do better than others?

Lets think about this a different way. You go out and buy a new car, you buy a new Ford Fiesta. A decent compact car with good gas mileage. You want to go fast so you put the same gas in the car that you would put in a race car. Eventually, you will burn the car out because it wasn't made to go that fast or use that type of fuel. Same things for humans.

Adderall is an amphetamine salt. It is speed. In a study as many as 25% of the kids at one college reported taking it to study. So do you think these kids get the money from their parents to buy the pills? No, they get enough money that they don't have to ask. Kids in Universities tend to come from wealthier families.

So what if you could do better in life if you could afford the medicine? Poor people don't pay $15 for a pill to study better, they couldn't buy enough of them to last four years. If transhumanism occurs, who will be able to afford these "upgrades" and will you feel at a disadvantage if you don't get them? The thing is, all the knowledge in the world is meaningless if one does not have wisdom.

Now lets say that you use pills to compete in the world because you can afford them, wouldn't you want them to be expensive so that not everyone could get them. I mean if everyone could get them then it sort of defeats the purpose. You would get no competitive edge.

I forgot something, the kids at the colleges where binge drinking was big are the same ones more likely to take Aderall according to the article. Well off kids who get completely blasted and then take pills at the last minute to get good grades. So the kids with the best grades that will get the best jobs binge drink and take speed to get ahead. Our future leaders.

Where are we headed as a nation? I mean things are bad enough already; but, where are we headed? We are so busy looking for advantages that we have not earned that we fail to see what a society based on such things becomes. We need to slow down and take an inventory of ourselves rather than plunge head first into new improvements of ourselves.

When did life become all about "winning", when did it stop being about living and growing at our own pace? And what type of world do you win, when you cheat?

Sunday, April 22, 2012

We Shall See

I don't know what this post is going to be about; but, I haven't posted in a bit (although I made a number of posts that I did not publish) and thought I might try my hand at it again. LOL. I think I will start with a couple of links to songs. I like Linda Ronstadt, I have been fortunate enough to see her in concert a couple of times, both made the news. One of the concerts was her fist to play older tunes with Nelson Riddle, it rained and we were outside, I got in free by accident. The other was in Vegas and she took a stand against the war and got booed by some.

Ms. Ronstadt has a voice that touches your tender spots. I think her best album (and I own most of them) was Hasten Down the Wind, I love the sorrowful jazz sound and the stories that tell. I hope you enjoy this.

YouTube - Linda Ronstadt - If He's Ever Near


My second selection is a song you don't hear on the radio anymore. I consider it a true love song, you don't hear those anymore. Most songs are about breaking up and having bad relationships. But, do you remember meeting anyone and having these feelings.

YouTube - Rex Smith - You Take My Breath Away

Do you remember a time when women felt the way that is described in the next song? If you are a woman, do you remember the first time that a man looked at you in a way that made you feel like Maria in the next video? Wjhy don't we make each other feel this way anymore? Why don't we believe in love?

YouTube - West Side Story - I Feel Pretty


I know this young lady, she is about 23. She works at a store that I go to regularly. She is a very nice young lady and is very pleasant to the little old Pimpernel. She told me about the boy she is dating, she said he was innocent. She was so thrilled to date someone who wasn't jaded by the world. She was thrilled to be with someone who had succumbed to the corruption of our souls. I thought it was great that he was the type of man who respected himself and that she was the type of girl that appreciated it. You don't see that much anymore. Here is a song for the hope in all of us.

YouTube - West Side Story - Somewhere


How should you feel about your love, I think this describes it pretty well.

YouTube - John Denver - Annie's Song


Why would you want to be with anyone that didn't make you feel that way? Here is a nice song about loving and sticking to it.

YouTube - Gloria Estefan - Don't Wanna Lose You

If you take the time to wait to meet the right person, you might find out that you can love more than if you take the first person you meet.

YouTube - Jefferson Starship - With Your Love


YouTube - Helen Reddy - I Don't Know How to Love Him

People used to actually feel these ways, the ways described in the songs. People actually felt like that about their lover, their spouse, their other. Does anyone feel that way anymore or does everyone settle for someone until they can trade up. If you can imagine trading up then you have never loved.

YouTube - Barry Manilow - Could It Be Magic

Two things. Next weekend one of my children are getting married. I do hope and pray that she and her betrothed feel the way that the songs above mention. As for me, I find this song more appropriate. It was also my mother's favorite song.

YouTube - Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again Naturally


I have a friend that has mentioned how she always liked my choices in music. I hope she enjoys these choices. I will throw in one more, it is completely different from the ones above; but, is also about hope. Peace.

YouTube - Donald Fagen - New Frontier

You see, we used to want to grow up, become independent and make our own way through this world. We used to think that being responsible for one another, a family, was meaningful. Now we think that people should be irresponsible and children for the rest of their lives.

YouTube - Rod Stewart - Forever Young


As for me, I've been young, adolescent, middle aged and now old. I prefer older, I would hate to have to learn it all again. So, lets try some cheerful songs.

YouTube - Huey Lewis and the News - If This Is It


YouTube - George Harrison - It's What You Value

I do hope you have enjoyed this musical interlude. Let us finish it with the few more.

YouTube - Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World

YouTube - Huey Lewis and the News - The Heart of Rock and Roll

YouTube - Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine

YouTube - Billy Joel - The Longest Time

YouTube - Otis Redding - Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

YouTube - Linda Ronstadt - Silver Threads and Golden Needles


YouTube - Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight


YouTube - Billy Joel - Keeping the Faith


YouTube - Randy Newman - I Love L.A.

If you have ever truly loved someone, the next video shows how you feel when you are separated from them. If you never felt this way when you were separated from them, then you never truly loved them.

YouTube - Phil Collins - Against All Odds

Monday, April 16, 2012

Tupac Hollogram and the Beatles

There is a large music festival in California called Coachella Music Festival. This year at the festival people were treated to a performance by Tupac Shakur. This was quite and achievement as he is dead. A full size hollogram of him performed along with two live musicians.

Here is a link to an article which includes some footage. Yahoo News - Stop The Presses - Tupac Hologram Cost Around $100,000 to $400,000, Dr. Dre Given “Blank Check” For Project. They say the audience didn't know what to think. I can only imagine how it freaked out the ones that were high as kites.

In the future they could make concerts of the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, heck, Michael Jackson can come back. Not only that but you could have concerts of people that showed their early and late performances in the same night. Just like the movie Avatar, your augmented reality can be your reality. If you grew up with it, you wouldn't know or care about the difference. How does that effect our long term ability to differentiate? What happens when reality ceases to be important and personal perceived and subjective experience is what matters?

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Lets Talk About Biometrics

Biometrics means taking people's individual biological dimensions. The Nazis were leaders in biometrics prior to and during World War II, they took pictures of untold numbers of people and then classified them by their race. Your fingerprint carries your individual biometric information as does your eye and your ear. Each voice is unique and the dimensions of your face are fairly unique. If someone has all of that information then they can identify you as you.

As I discussed in my last post, if you are going to have a cashless society then you have to have a way of positively identifying who is accessing your electronic identity and electronic "cash". I am not advocating either, I am explaining where we are going and why. For a "global" economy to be truly global the belief is that we have to standardize the valuation of currencies and of nations.

The government is interested in biometrics for other reasons. They want to identify criminals and terrorist, unfortunately, they are notorious for over collecting information on everyone. Here is a link to a government website, you might try watching the video at the bottom of their page.

Biometrics.gov

The question next becomes, if we do need to have biometric information available when we go to a cashless society, who should have access to it? Should a stalker have access to it, should we all have everyone else's information so that we can scan the internet and find all the pictures of them? What about your bank and law enforcement?

What if your bank required your biometric information in order to have an account? Would you give it or go without the ability to get paid or pay bills? I received so many hits to the last post that I thought I would give some further background on the issue.

The final frontier for biometrics is DNA. Obviously your DNA is unique to you, it is also left on things that you touch from the oils in your fingers. If you have watched any detective shows you have seen DNA be used to prove who committed a crime. The FBI has a database of people's DNA and it is more and more common for jails to take your DNA if you are arrested. I wrote a while back about how IBM was making a very small and portable machine that could take and analyze your DNA.

I hope that provided some additional information. Have a great week.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

You Will Have Two Choices, Yes and No

Japanese banks are installing new ATMs. Currently, the ATMs require a card and your biometric freatures (palm, eye or fingerprints) are used to verify that you are you and prevent others from using your card. These banks are now going to no longer require the card, your biometric identification alone will allow you to access your money.

Gizmag - Japanese palm-reading ATMs to allow card-free transactions


I cannot imagine that any of my regular readers do not understand the times we live in. I cannot imagine anyone regularly visiting this blog and not care about these things. I am amusing; but, not that amusing. In Japan, currently, in order to access your money through an ATM, you have to give the bank your biometric information. There are vary few Christians in Japan and I wonder how they feel about this.

In Scotland schools your biometric information is required to get a school lunch and it is also how the lunch is paid for. Why isn't this bigger news? Here is the article from Gizmag - Palm Vein-based Biometric ID system for schools. In the article it says “This installation in the education sector provides a first glimpse of a school of the future,” said Mike Nelson, General Manager, Fujitsu Europe Limited. “Biometric solutions will increasingly allow us to move towards a cashless society and this project is one of the first real examples in the UK of an innovative and truly practical biometric solution in operation.

I write about the cashless society and how it is tied to biometrics and it is coming and in different parts of the world, different aspects of it are in use; but, it isn't discussed in the mainstream media very much. Consider what Mr. Nelson said, we cannot have a cashless society if we do not have your biometrics.

Let us assume that we are going to eliminate physical currency and have an all electronic currency. If I want to steal money from you, mug you, then I will either have to force you to put your hand on the sensor or cut it off and do it time and time again. You can do the same with someone's eye. Now lets talk about car keys.

If you have a newer car then you have a newer key. The new keys are laser cut and can only be duplicated by the manufacturer (they are also expensive). When I had my Mercedes, I had to prove it was me to get a key and the people at Mercedes had to get a copy of my license so that they could get the key from the manufacturer. In the future it will be my biometrics.

Now, I am going to get biblical on you. The Book of Revelations said 2,000 years ago that we would have a one world currency and nobody would be allowed to buy or sell without a mark on their hand or forehead. You can believe the bible or not, that is a personal choice; but, the technology required to require such a mark worldwide was not available until now. That is a fact. In the future all currency will be electronic and you will be required to be scanned on your forehead or your hand in order to make financial exchanges. Churches won't even be allowed to receive cash if the members have not provided their biometric information.

I have previously written about the coming requirement that one have an individual identification in order to use the internet. One European or Scandinavian country has already said that they are moving forward with that. Put the pieces together. In order to buy or sell, you will need to be in a biometric database and have an individual international identification.

My readers know that I research these things and provide links so that you can verify that I am not paranoid or making these things up, they simply are. Many people believe these technologies are great and do not care about their privacy; but, lets consider just how much information is electronically kept about you. Every tweet, every post, every purchase, every call, every place you went with your cell phone or in your car or carrying your passport or where you took your dog or your when your computer was with you is tracked. That is GPS technology.

I know that some of my readers are atheists and it doesn't matter, what I write about effects them also. Are any of my readers happy to know that they will not be allowed to buy or sell unless they have an international identification and have all of their biometric information stored so that they can be tracked. This is why they are against Burqas and hoodies, the cameras cannot see and identify you. Look, government will be prevented from outlawing these things, you won't be required to show your face; but, in exchange, you will be required to be scanned on your hand in order to buy or sell.

The scanners in Scotland, they don't just scan your palm. They scan your working veins in your hands. I don't recall if the article said how it dealt with people who had no hands, I bet they scan their forehead?

The United States government has announced that in the future if you have not paid your taxes, you passport will be deactivated and passports in the United States have RFID chips in them. What if you were not allowed to buy food unless you had paid your taxes? I be fewer people would cheat on their taxes.

So what brought this all up? Well I attended a church tonight and after the service, one of the attendees had asked me about Revelations. I liked their question, they asked about the Rapture (that is when we are told some believers will leave this world at the same time during the end times). I said that I thought there would be Christians left behind and that it would be a great opportunity to help others understand what was going on and support those who awakened. I am not of the Harold Camping crowd, I don't believe that all believers avoid the end times and I believe we continue to have new believers. I was then asked about "cookies". LOL.

I use an analogy of cookies to explain how the world works. The masses are managed by giving them cookies. Your cookie could be money or fame or toys or jewelry or sex or whatever. People chase cookies. If you threaten to take away their cookies for doing wrong or giving them cookies for doing what you want then the degree to which they are your slave is equivalent to their greed for their cookie. Money is the cookie that most love because it can buy just about any other cookie.

What happens when you have a choice between taking a mark or not having any of your cookies? When you have a cashless society, the government will expect you to pay taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, income tax, whatever tax and you won't be able to if you don't have your biometrics because you won't be able to use your bank and their won't be any physical currency. If you don't pay your taxes, you will lose your house, you won't be able to buy anything or sell anything and you will lose everything you own, you won't even be able to pay for gas or car insurance or your license. You will lose all mobility.

In the end, you will have two choices, yes and no. Which will you pick?

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Internet is the Military and Intelligence Agencies

I wrote about this once before; but, it was a long time ago and I thought it deserved discussing the issue again. All of the communications of the world are monitored on one level or another by the United States. All GPS satellites are owned by the United States Military and controlled by them. Wikipedia - Global Positioning System.

Russia, China, Iran, heck, every nation in the world, every crook in the world, every terrorist in the world, everyone in the world that uses GPS is using a system that is owned and controlled by the U.S. Military. So, why is it that nobody seems to know this? It is claimed that it is all taken care of by four satellites; but, with the government you can never really know.

The internet is also owned by the government. It was designed and created by the military. It was ARPANET. Wikipedia - ARPANET. Once it had proven itself, it was modified and eventually 13 servers became the backbone of the current internet and all of them are controlled by the United States government. The core 13 are known as the Root Name Servers and they control your ability to find anything or communicate with others. Wikipedia - Root Name Servers.

Central to these servers is ARPA. ARPA stood for Advanced Research Projects Agency (now known as DARPA)which is an agency of the United States Department of Defense. You can look either up on Wikipedia. The management of these servers is contracted with private companies; but, the final say is still with the Department of Defense. The two companies that are most interesting to me are Verisign and ICANN. Remember a while back when a number of websites were taken down at the request of the government, that was done by Verisign.

Now, here is a question for the little ones. Why does the government allow anyone in the world to access the internet? Better yet, why doesn't the government openly take credit for the internet? Here is another question, when we go to a cashless society, the United States government will control the international currencies. During a war we could simply put a stop to another countries ability to use the internet and access their currencies and of course the GPS.

As you read this I do hope you understand the importance of what I am saying. Read the articles fully and you will understand the simplicity of it. You do not have a basic human right to use the internet and in the end the focus of the internet is not commerce, it is achieving predictability of human reactions to social and environmental forces. It's purpose is predictive programming.

Some people recently were discussing how the President wanted an internet kill switch; but, the truth is, he always has had that switch. He just has to shut down the 13 computers and the whole thing comes to an end. In fact, he also has the ability to reboot the internet (it takes three keys) and involves three military bases. I wrote about this before and provided links.

The internet began in the early 60s and it wasn't until the late 80s and early 90s that private companies were allowed to use it. Why were private companies allowed to use it? When the private companies were allowed to use it a couple of big companies emerged. AOL being the one that did the best. In order to use the internet you had to have a service provider like AOL. I didn't like the limitations of a service provider, I didn't trust them and there were limitations. I obtained a truly independent service provider, my original service provider was a couple of NASA engineers who started their own business because they knew about these things before they became public. How technical were they, not vary. I had to show them how to configure the first Internet Explorer software to work within their server. I was beta testing the software.

I was one of the first people on the internet, it was part of my job to investigate it because nobody knew what it was going to become. We thought AOL and Prodigy and Compuserve were the internet. The public face of the internet in the beginning was not the government, it was these private service providers.

Look at the garbage we believe. People think Google and Facebook and Yahoo are going to control the internet. They are not, the government OWNS the internet. I know the government can see anything and everything on the net. I know they know who I am and who you are. They know who visits this site and every other site in the world because they control the infrastructure.

In the future you are going to be required to have a unique, personal identification in order to use the internet and it is going to require facial recognition in order to verify who you are. This is already being discussed nationally and internationally.

Now here is some wisdom. You do not build infrastructure if you don't know what you want in the end. Well it is called the Information Awareness Office. Wikipedia - Information Awareness Office. Their purpose is to have "Total Information Awareness", their description of their purpose, not mine. And who created them, DARPA, the same people who created the internet. If the same people created these two things then if you put the two together, you understand the purpose. The purpose of the internet is to convince people to provide every detail of their life to the government under the illusion that any of it is hidden from them.

William Safire reported that the Information Awareness Office was funded to create dossiers on 300 million Americans. That meant all of us. This same office was funded to find a way to bio-metrically identify people. In other words, identify people just by facial recognition software. That only works if you have cameras everywhere and that is why we have cameras everywhere.

This is not me being paranoid, I provided the links and you can go to their own websites. I have. Everytime you tweet or post, the government has access to it and it gets added to your file. The FBI told me that I don't have a file and that if I do it means that I am on a "Watch Lit". Not a "no fly" list. My answer to that is always the same; but, I will clean it up, my answer is "Watch This". LOL.

Why do we hear so much about Facebook having facial recognition software and that being a threat to our privacy when the government has had it for decades? Do you think they don't have voice recognition technology? That has been around for decades also. If you use technology that has a camera or a microphone (and what doesn't, most use both) then every time you use it, you are identified.

Now, I don't want people to be all paranoid. Nobody cares what 98% of you think or do, you are probably not that interesting and pose no threat. You are openly being told that you have no privacy on the internet for a reason. They want you to reject people who are not wired in. What do you think about people who don't own a cell phone, use only cash and won't use the internet? Social pressure is an amazing thing.

The Pimpernel apologizes for not having written better posts recently. There was not much in the news that I cared about and I was sad. The news is getting more interesting and I am feeling better. I even got to see my old dog (lives with my ex-wife) recently and that was nice. I wanted her (the dog) to see me before she passes on and she is very old. I do hope that the last few posts have risen to what my regular readers have come to hope for out of me.

The purpose of writing these new articles is because I have been asked to explain these things to people and we will be making some videos in multiple languages. So the request got me thinking about starting with the basics again. When I first began this blog, a few years ago, someone tried to convince me that while what I said might be interesting and true, they said that nobody would understand me. I think they were wrong, heck, based on what people tell me, I communicate fairly well.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Science Tries Imititating Life

The purpose of the internet is not just to aide in communication or game playing. It's higher purpose is to map out how people think and interact. We are designing all of our technology to duplicate human thought. We are attempting to create the "Synchronicity", we are trying to make computers that are smarter than us in the hope that they will make better choices than us. We are trying to make computers into God.

Google is a good example of this. Google is a personality test, it finds your likes and dislikes and tailors your search to you. It is not the only program that is mapping you out and the programs have a pretty good idea of how 90% of the people will act 90% of the time. We call this predictive programming. It will never get 100% because it cannot duplicate outliers.

When you hear about a new program or website, you should ask yourself what it is learning about you, about all of the people that go there. There is a new website that is hoping to understand all of the internet and you. I think you should read the linked article below because that is what they say about themselves.

Wired - Wavii Vows to Understand Entire Internet

You may have heard how the military is monitoring gamers and how they think. The military games are the perfect place for examining different battlefield tactics and see which ones work in which situations, why wouldn't they look at this information. Certainly the "Sims" is a good test ground for social interaction and to monitor peoples aspirations.

We do not live in "The Matrix", we are participating in giving people the tools to create one. I have previously written about crowd sourcing and why it cannot work, the same things apply here. The technology behind Wavii will eventually be combined with something even worse. They are currently attempting to create a technology that can literally read your thoughts. You will want to read this linked story also.

Singularity Hub - Brain Scanner Being Used To Give Stephen Hawking A New Voice

The article talks about someone who has invented a machine that can read your thoughts and they chose Stephen Hawking to learn from first. Many consider Mr. Hawking to be the smartest man in the world, a good choice if you believe he is and want to understand deep thinking; but, Mr. Hawking is still a douche and does not know all the answers.

While I know that this will fail to achieve what is truly intended, it will be very successful most of the time. That is not the part that bothers me the most. The use of this technology will make people intellectual cripples in the future.

Someone recently told me a story. They told me how a younger relative had asked them to review something they wrote for school. The person read it and said that there were numerous spelling mistakes. The kid said that the teacher said it didn't matter because the kid could always use spell check. When I was in High School, electronic calculators had just come out. My teacher told us that we could not use them and made us learn to use a slide ruler. That man taught us how to read maps, how to write checks (though my mother had already taught me when I was six) and he always gave very practical advice, things that were simple and would help throughout life. I deeply regret that I cannot remember his name; but, I remember his face, him and his teachings.

Ignoring, for the moment, how this technology can be used to manipulate us, consider how never having to learn things for yourself will make our children incapable of doing anything if the technology goes down. It will teach us to not think for ourselves, it will provide all the virtual pleasures and we as a species will become stupid and rely on it. It will destroy new thought through consensus and crowd sourcing. If you live in a virtual world and nobody will interact with you, you have been constructively put into solitary confinement.

Hundreds of millions of people rely on Facebook for their social interactions. What if they were removed from Facebook for bullying and everyone else at all the other social media sites rejected you because you had been kicked off for bullying. You lose your community. You would only be allowed back in if you allowed someone to approve what you said in advance, to censor you when you were inappropriate, in advance of anyone other than a moderator know what you said.

If you don't understand where all of this is going, I will explain. Right now there is talk about passing anti-bullying laws and internet protection laws. People are upset about that and these laws will not be successful in most ways. What is going to happen is that websites such as Facebook and others will be held liable if they allow certain communications. The websites will kick you off and they are legally entitled to. The same result through a different method, one that seems legal.

I was kicked off of a website by someone I dearly love. I was told that the site was being changed to allow me on in the future; but, it would require that a moderator approve my statements in advance. I want to be very clear, that was one of the purposes for the redesign, it was with me in mind and that was a very kind thought. I could never be involved in such a community, I don't believe in a mediator of my words and accept responsibility for my actions. Anyways, I do know where social is headed because of my personal experience.

What we are talking about is creating a personal internet experience. Lets say we identify someone as a pedophile (child molester). As part of their punishment, their use of the internet would be limited to their profile, the sites they could be limited to would be ones that didn't have children on them. We would all support that, wouldn't we? Now, what if, everything you ever did on the internet created a profile of you and determined what you could and could not see on the internet and you didn't even know it. Websites that you would never be interested in just didn't show up on your searches and you never made a mistake so you never learned anything new or that was not in agreement with existing beliefs? Get it?

In the end, it is a spiritual question. It is the simplest question in the world. Would you give up your free will for pleasure? What is being offered is "The Matrix", a place where you always win in exchange for giving up your free will. The price for free will is the truth and it is bought at a price. According to the bible, the smartest man up to the time he died, was Solomon. Solomon said that with great knowledge came great pain. How much pain will you take to grow, to not take the easy way out?

Monday, April 9, 2012

Where Are The Protest Songs

The world has gone horribly wrong and there are no protest songs. Where are the Neil Youngs, the Arlo Guthries, the Sex Pistols? We have Lady Gaga and boy bands singing banal, meaningless drivel. Where are the protests in the songs, where is the concern that the youth are about to be given a life of debt and less?

My guess is that they are playing in clubs and small venues and building their base. Whether you believe things are bad or do not, you should still know that many people are unhappy and many of the young ones are unhappy. How come we cannot hear their voices? If they can sleep out at Occupy events then certainly they are writing protest songs, why don't we hear them? It is because the media does not play them, they play Lady Gaga (who I actually believes has a good voice).

Look at the media you are presented with and understand that it is not reality, it is a show. Politics and media are shows that are put on to lead and entertain. The entertainment is meant to reinforce your biases and bigotry. What you are being shown is that it is all staged. That is what reality tv teaches you and you come to believe that everyone is a liar so that you will not hear the truth.

Do not give up, do not give up on looking for the truth. I am not going to say it is easy making sense of this world, I do what I can to explain things to others, do the same. We all know things are not right, the question is what is right. What should we be thinking about and doing?

What is Normal? Not these days.

When you read the news, watch television or go to the movies, when you are exposed to the mass media, it seems that the world has gone insane. I know many people have just shut down and stop paying attention, it seems that it is too much for them to take in and process. Obviously this is not true for my dear readers.

I think the biggest problem is that we have lost our moral compass. People are fearful of what they do not understand and who can understand anything going on in the world anymore. Over the weekend I attended an event at a University at night. While there I had to help someone up because they had passed out in the street. I saw a number of people openly groping each other in public and one of the people who was there with me had a young lady call down from a balcony and ask him if he wanted to have sex. We did not know any of these people.

Throughout the evening we heard screaming, carrying on, ambulances and general craziness. It was a world with no boundaries, privacy or restraint. This is not the old guy talking about the kids these days. It was the kids these days that first got me looking at globalization. It was the kids who are going to run this world that I was seeing, the ones who can afford to go to an expensive University. I also went to college and saw parties, what was different was that I was told it was this way every week.

In the past, people from the lower classes were wild and the people from the upper classes had to maintain more dignity. That isn't true anymore. The guy that passed out, he was with two women. One of the women was semi-comatose and the other seemed okay. I asked her if he was going to be okay and she said, "oh they are like this all the time, I have seen them much worse". Worse than passed out so bad that even shaking and talking will not wake him?

Rome fell for a reason, nobody cared and everyone just wanted to enjoy themselves. They had convinced themselves that the purpose of life was joy. When the barbarians came, there was nobody willing to fight back. The old saying is that Rome fell from within before it was taken from without (or something very much like that). The United States and the west are collapsing from within.

I saw my mother in law over the weekend. I did not see my ex-wife. My mother in law had always been a staunch Republican. She told me she had become a Tea Party member and had even lost a friend because of it. She said it didn't seem to matter who we voted for because nothing changed and that is not how it used to be. I was proud of her for seeing it. She even mentioned how the government spies on us (a relative of hers that really does know had told her how it was done).

Where are we going? When will people work together again? The bible talks about Israel. At certain times in it's history the people turned from the Lord and did what was right in their own eyes with no concern over how others looked on it. Those were the times when Israel was taken into captivity by other nations. The west is the same today. Today people don't just do what they want, they post it on Facebook and are happy to let you know even when they are committing a crime.

We had the big party with the housing bubble and then it burst and we have the hangover as we have to pay for the party, as the economies all go sour. Kodak has declared bankruptcy and is about to give out over $8 million in bonuses. Huh? Not long ago Arnold Schwarzenegger pardoned a convicted murderer because it was the son of a political friend and Schwarzenegger said that is what you do for friends. There is no shame and nothing that moves us other than personal reward, happiness if you will.

I will say something good about my ex-wife. When her sister left her husband for another man, she tried to tell her it was a bad idea. I have heard that she has had second thoughts about her own actions with regards to me. We all make mistakes and that is just life, the question is whether or not we learn from them or glory in them. The people that are supposed to be our leaders no longer care nor worry about their mistakes, nothing has changed even after the bubbles have burst and the economies have failed. Those who can benefit from the failures are happy to, nobody does good.

When my mother in law told me that she was a member of the Tea Party, I told her that the Tea Party and the Occupy movement should join up with the areas that they do agree on. She looked puzzled for a second and asked me about them. I told her of my experience in Los Angeles with them. Congress has the lowest level of trust in the history of the country; but, we cannot agree on who to put in office to replace them. The left and right dislike their own parties and have tried to start new movements; but, they have not reconciled on what they do agree on.

Just some thoughts from a crazy old man.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Digital Money Again

I had previously posted on how Sweden wanted to go all electronic for their currency. Well, the Canadians do also.

itbusiness.ca - Royal Canadian Mint reveals MintChip, issues $50,000 developer challenge

When I talk about the end of paper currency, older people usually think I am nuts and younger people think it is a great idea. Not only are we going to see an end to cash, we are going to see an end to checks. Here is a nice article from England.

The Telegraph - Is a cashless society on the cards?


About a quarter of a way down the article there is a link to another article discussing how by 2018. Let me make it clear in the future you will not have cash or checks and you will do all your transactions electronically where they can be used against you and be used to profile you. Your digital fingerprint will be a history of every purchase and transaction you ever make.

Currently people who would be called "globalists" want to institute personal carbon taxes. CICERO (The Center for International Climate and Environmental Research) has published this article - Personal carbon “credit cards” – coming soon to your wallet?

So what are we looking at in the future. Electronic currency, personal carbon taxes, a tax on all international transactions going to the United Nations to fight global warming. Read the links and tell me that I am making this all up. Look at what people believe and then ask how much influence they have over the decisions. I have none or at least practically none. I wrote two posts in one day. Enjoy.

Google Glasses and the End of Anonymity

Firstly, I apologize for the delay in new posts. I have been moody and had some things on my mind.

Now I want to discuss the new Google glasses. Have you heard about these? You put them on and have a little display that is basically your personal assistant and access to the internet. Oh it also works as a phone and video recorder. Here is an article about them which includes a video showing how they will work. If nothing else, watch the video.

Wired - Google Gets Transparent With Glass, Its Augmented Reality Project

So, what did you think of the glasses. The first thing that I want to point out was that the glasses mapped out where the music section was in the store. How did it know? Google maps of the inside of buildings? Interesting isn't it? The next thing you may have noticed is that the wearer asked if his friend had arrived at the store yet and because his friend has his phones gps on, he knew he was only a couple hundred feet away. Now lets look at something else and you will begin to understand what the glasses can really do.

PC World - Why Facebook's Facial Recognition is Creepy

Facebook has implemented facial recognition technology that allows it to surf the web and identify pictures of you from anywhere. Lets consider what might happen if we combined the two technologies. Walking down the street, you see a pretty girl and have you glasses find pictures of her on the internet and attempt to identify her or see if you have any common friends in your social network. She notices you also and does the same except she discovers that you are a registered sex offender. Yep, when you were in high school at 18, you slept with your girlfriend of 17 and the parents had you prosecuted. It would just say that your a sex offender 20 years later. How do I know, because I met someone who was in that situation. Perhaps your still good with all of this; but, lets continue down this path.

She blows you off and you continue walking. You next see an old friend and have the glasses scan the internet for more current information on him. While you are doing that, the search engine reports and records you photo of him and someone who has been waiting to serve him legal papers gets a notification of where he is because you saw him. Is this getting scary yet? Lets consider this even deeper, you see someone, the image is sent back to the internet, it matches someone who the police are interested in and they get live streaming video of what you are seeing and what the person is doing. You have become an informant and didn't even know it.

We are looking at a coming world where everyone is self reporting and reporting on everyone else. When you post someone's picture on the internet without their approval, you are violating their privacy. You are also giving away their personal information because you are giving away their biometric identity. When you use the glasses you are making a recording of everything you have done during the day. Try and think about these things as new technologies emerge.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Nigel Farage and Inconsitancies

There is a politician in the United Kingdom named Nigel Farage, I posted a link to one of his speeches before. Mr. Farage is one of the very few politicians in the European Union that actively disagrees with it's very existence. I generally enjoy his speeches where he promotes democracy; but, I found he is inconsistent.

YouTube - UKIP Nigel Farage - A message to the Australian Monarchist League, April 2011

Mr. Farage is sort of the English version of Ron Paul. The lone person calling out the banking fraud, counter-productive bailouts and the loss of democracy. Yet, he is a isolationist and believes in austerity measures that are unsustainable. We are provided with no politician who is willing to consider all sides, all or nothing thinking, not moral thinking, cost benefit all or nothing thinking.

Most people who come to this site will not watch the video; but, if you watched the link I posted to another of his speeches then you will see that he still believes having a queen is better than politicians. He is in fact a Monarchist. He worships the queen of England and that is not very democratic.

In the case of Mr. Farage and Mr. Paul, in both cases we only ever hear what we want. They both claim to be for freedom and democracy. Mr. Paul supports the legalization of drugs. I do not consider that a radical idea; however, most Republicans do and he is a Republican. Mr. Paul is also against abortion which is popular with Republicans but loses him Democratic and Independent voters.

Mr. Paul and Mr. Farage are the only ones speaking out for freedom; but, each has things for everyone to hate that they take passionately. If 90% of the people agree with you on one issue and disagree with you on half of your other issues, you never win the big one. The question is, why would you vote for anyone who had voted for the Patriot act? Why would you vote for anyone who voted for the Healthcare bill, the TARP and Stimulus bills? I want you to remember that all of these bill were passed with massive support from both parties.