Dear Mr. President;

Please don't sign the new Patriot Act.


The Patriot Act did not catch Usama.  The Patriot Act hasn't ended threats from Al-Queda, Taliban, or mexican drug cartels.  The Patriot Act hasn't got us, the US, out of Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else we've put our troops since it first passed over a presidential desk.  The Patriot Act didn't stop a man from parking a truck bomb in Times Square


Americans, in fact, are unclear just how much the Patriot Act has done for us.  It has done quite a bit TO us, stripping our civil and legal rights to the bone.  The Patriot Act promised us safety in exchange for our constitutional sacrifices, but what we got is secret-police-like law enforcement with little, if any, oversight.  The Patriot Act promised security for our patience, but instead we suffer indignity and TSA groping at airports while not one in 100 cargo containers coming into our ports are inspected for ANY kind of threat.


Be a patriot, Mr. President.  Give America her rights back.  Don't sign the Patriot Bill Extension Act.  Please.

Family History

A million years ago our direct ancestors lived in an Eden of forests, grasslands, rivers, and lakes. Everything they needed for an idyllic existence lived around them. Sure there were lions, but the lions did not often hunt those pre-Men; there was plenty of game that did not fight back in packs. Yes, Man had competition, but nothing he couldn't handle. Everything was in balance.

Then it all changed. Climate change drove off the antelope, and the lions followed them. Drought changed the very nature of the land, killing fruit trees and leaving arid grasslands. Competition for berries and small game grew fierce, even deadly. Deserts slowly advanced, consuming all as they moved. Change was forced on those hominids from every direction.

Some, lacking imagination perhaps, stayed and struggled to survive. Some probably stayed to prey on those other survivors, taking up raiding and cannibalism. Some decided to do as the herds did and move on. Extinction took most of those who would not leave and tracked the others across Africa. We learned to ruthlessly take all we could from the land, then move on.

In other words, nature made us what we are today. Only those that moved survived. Slash and burn was a way of life. We learned to take what we needed from around us, regardless of what those actions caused. Food gone? Time to move. Want shelter? Don't look for a cave, chop down a tree and build a hut. Predators taking your game, or even hunting the tribe? Kill it. Forest thickets allowing wily game to escape? Burn it.

That part of us survived. Today some people moan and cry about our lack of ecological savvy, but there is good reason for that lack. We were bred for it by Mother Nature herself. She honed us into a weapon of destruction, aimed it at the future, and pulled the trigger.

Maybe she is doing us a favor, making us tough enough to survive that next killer asteroid, ice-age, or other extinction-level event. Maybe we are that disaster, designed and destined to reset the biosphere. Maybe we are just the inevitable result of our solar neighborhood becoming more stable, allowing us to evolve and thrive beyond any previous species because there are fewer killer asteroids, solar flares, etc.

Whatever the reason, here we are. Nature may soon pay the ultimate price for making us what we are today. It seems likely that we will pay that same price shortly thereafter. Feel no remorse or shame for nature; over time she will recover. Once the sea revives, sky clears, and ice recedes, she will begin the entire sordid show again.

And this is not a call for world-saving, eco-social changes. Ecology is the bad guy in this tale of familial abuse. If anything this is a reminder that, when the time comes, we must be prepared to do what we do best – move on. This is what Nature meant us to do, curse or gift, and nothing else will save Mankind in the end.

I'll be the guy with his thumb out.

What You Don't Know. . .

I'm glad there are so many stupid people in the world, because it makes me look so much smarter than I really am. I'm also glad there are so many ignorant people in the world, because it makes my own ignorance less obvious. But why would mankind be this way? Because it seems that less stupidity and ignorance might actually be bad for the human race. Here's why.

Ignorance and stupidity are two different things. Most folks should know this, though many choose not to. Stupidity is what most politicians practice, ignorance is what most voters practice. Stupidity is what marketers count on, ignorance is what consumers practice. Yet, can governance or economy survive without them both?

A fully educated and thoughtful populace could be hard to govern. Everyone would have an opinion and be capable of informed debate. No governmental structure can account for this. In the USA, it would mean that politicians could no longer win elections with just money and appearances. They would be required to demonstrate their education and intelligence to gain the trust of the voters. Campaign promises would have to be backed up with actual data and plans. I imagine after the nuts were sorted out there would be very few candidates left willing and able to serve.

And as difficult as getting elected might be, running our government at all would become even more problematical, given nobody would simply, blindly follow orders. No army could function in the face of such individual independence. Federal revenue would be scanty indeed in the face of an informed populace; few taxes would be owed after crafty citizens took every advantage of the tax code.  In fact, citizens would likely decide governments were better at building roads than butting into their private business and vote most of Washington out of existence. 

Of course, it would be far worse in countries where lies, fear, and force are used to rule. The populace would be fully aware better treatment was possible. Revolt would rise everywhere, assassinations wipe out tyrants, or more likely, such citizenry would simply slip away in the night. There might develop a large population of migrant citizens traveling from one advantaged country to another, seeking the best returns on their social investment.

Consumerism would be in even worse shape. Advertising could no longer make imaginative claims and trust consumers to be duped. The mass of informed shoppers would pursue sales and coupons, stock up when seasonal prices were down, and spontaneously form co-ops in response to locally high prices. Marketing would be completely changed.

Even bigger victims would be Wall Street and almost all financial institutions. With full knowledge that investing is gambling and investors are simply con-men seeking to gamble with someone else's money, stock markets would crash, never to recover. Investment companies, loan companies, mortgage companies, even insurance companies would be marginal entities at best, ruled by true market forces rather than inflated speculative values.

Then again I could be wrong, considering I'm not as smart as all that. Maybe someone will tell me the real answer to why ignorance is bliss?

Wait - if it's gonna hurt, maybe I don't wanna know.