Just When I Thought There Was No More Mileage Left In The Titanic Story

I've always been fascinated with the story of the Titanic. I practically grew up on it. When Dr. Bob Ballard discovered the wreck, I made my parents buy me a copy of his book as soon as it hit the shelves. I even watched and sort of liked James Cameron's movie, although for the historical perspective, not the fictional love story.

I recently came across a Titanic conspiracy video, and watched it. I wasn't sure what to expect. Even if there's nothing to it, I think it's fascinating. The ship that sank was Olympic, and the sinking was a deliberate act of insurance fraud by White Star Line:


This video can fit all of its claims into the official timeline.

I've known about Capt Smith being a horrible ship driver. He had three shipwrecks while in command of Olympic. The last one damaged the keel, and would have cost White Star Line more to fix than the ship was worth. And since the collision was with a Royal Navy ship, Smith was at fault no matter how you cut it, hence, no insurance payment. Smith was apparently a worse ship driver than the Captain of the Costa Concordia. That guy was showing off.

So the video proposes that:

• Olympic and Titanic were virtually identical. All but their painted name and a bronze plate were the same. The two ships were switched.
• During the middle of a coal strike, Californian set sail empty with full coal bunkers, and sat in the ice field. A Titanic survivor claimed an officer made a comment that Californian would rescue them.
• When the iceberg was sighted, Titanic had the turn radius to avoid it. But by putting the engines into full astern, the ship's stern was swung around to starboard, which caused the collision.
• The real Titanic, under the name Olympic, served for 25 years.
• White Star upped the insurance premium on Titanic prior to the voyage. They were paid out more than the value of the ship.

It's an interesting analysis.

Book Review: The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky

For some reason, I'm fascinated by this period in Russia's history. I've seen several documentaries on Stalin, Tsar Nicholas II, and Rasputin. I read Helen Rappaport's book about the last days of the Romanov family. When this book popped up while I was browsing Amazon, I grabbed it.

Edvard Radzinsky is a Russian playwright and historian. He researched this book for 25 years. He gained access to formerly secret archives and eyewitnesses. This book traces the life of Nicholas Romanov, the last Tsar of Russia.

The book was originally written in Russian, and masterfully translated into English.

More "Conspiracy Theory" on Malaysia Arlines

There appears to be a new theory on the Malaysia Airlines plane, which I don't yet buy. I'll do the best I can to render it accurately, but to me it seems like a bunch of datapoints that may or may not be related tied together.

Apparently, there were some engineers on the plane heading to a conference in China. These engineers were patent holders of some military technology. They worked for Freescale Seminconductor.

There are also some big name tie ins to the story, such as Lord Rothschild and the Carlyle Group.

As best as I can tell from these blog posts,

http://qasimism.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/who-benefits-from-missing-flight-370/

http://www.westernjournalism.com/real-reason-flight-370-disappeared/ (Video included)

the flight going down and the engineers dying means that those shares of patents revert to Freescale Semiconductor and Lord Rothschild.

I still don't buy it when there are plenty of reasonable explanations for the disappearance of a plane over an area of water that is several times larger than the land mass of 'murca!

Believe it or not, flights go down mysteriously all the time. You just don't hear about it because you're not into aviation, and the media is too damn busy covering Miley Circus to tell you about it. I'm not even sure why this particular flight got any media attention. It was probably a slow news day and Congress hadn't done anything stupid yet.

Often when a plane goes down over water, it can take years, if not decades, to find the wreckage and determine the cause. Here is a flight that went down mysteriously over the Mediterranean. A journalist got a call from somebody claiming it was shot down by a missile. It took them many years to figure out what caused the flight to go down, which they ultimately determined had to be a bomb. They'll never know who planted it or why:



There are too many real world conspiracies to keep me busy without manufacturing my own. If the Malaysia Airlines flight was a conspiracy for some reason, fine. We'll get the evidence eventually. But tying in a bunch of datapoints with logical fallacies, such as Questionable Cause and Appeal to Fear, is not going to help.

Book Review: The Illuminati Facts & Fiction by Mark Dice

Illuminati- use that word and people start running. Or start mocking you.

And yet, it was a historical, documented group. It left behind plenty of documentation and evidence.

But accurate information on it is hard to come by. Some people do a decent job of explaining the information, then go batshit insane on their analysis. Or they are unable to differentiate concepts, and spend the rest of the time ranting things like "The Jesuits killed Kennedy!" They begin to confuse terms and groups, and list everything as either "The Jesuits" or "The Masons". Some even refer to every possible insider scheme as "The Knights Templar" (also a historical group).

20 Hours of Kennedy Assassination Content

Back in November, the 50 year anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination took place. A lot of the independent media I listen to produced special episodes and investigative reports.

By far my favorite, and the most intense, is Richard Grove's Peace Revolution podcast episode 80. It consists of almost 20 hours of artifacts related to the Kennedy assassination. I finally got through it all yesterday.

Did you know the term "Conspiracy Theorist" came out of the aftermath of the Kennedy Assassination? It was an ad hominem attack or smokescreen used to discredit anyone who questioned the official story.

My favorite inconsistency from the Kennedy Assassination? OK, the President had just been assassinated. A Dallas cop was shot. Yet somehow, 20 police officers had the time to show up at a movie theater over a complaint that somebody didn't buy a ticket (Oswald).

Like Richard Grove in his monologue in the podcast, I'm not taking a stance in this blog post. I merely note that Kennedy was assassinated, there are holes in the story, and the artifacts included in that podcast (as well as many others) exist. I invite you to check them out with a critical mind.

Cycles of Time

I recently started reading "The Fourth Turning" by Strauss and Howe. I was inspired to finally get the book (which I've heard about since the late 90's) by Aurini's hour long "Generational Theory and the Upcoming Crisis" video. At present, I'm reading Chapter 4 of the book. I have quite a way to go, but I'm enjoying the concept.

I have long since come to recognize that time seems to flow in cycles. At least, time may be linear, but culture, history, and society flow in cycles. 

I notice when I read cultural commentary or discuss culture with friends, most people seem to assume that whatever trends we're under will continue to escalate until everything unravels and civilization falls apart. But that is not what happens. 

Take, for instance, the increasing age at which people leave home. Would you be surprised to learn a similar pattern emerged in the 1920's, then obviously reversed? I hear a lot about the increasing age at which people marry. Some seem to predict this trend will continue until nobody marries prior to menopause, and nobody has children, then society will collapse. But how realistic is that?

I have written a little bit about what the manosphere calls "game". Guys who go out and try to pick up women claim that even overweight 5's and 6's are hard to get anymore, because they're so used to "beta orbiters" showering them with attention and validation. I have seen this trend on Facebook with some girls I know; how the "beta orbiters" move in with every comment the girl makes. 

Some game writers, like Roosh, seem to conclude that western women are a lost cause and move to Eastern Europe where the women are more feminine and less westernized. Where they don't have to spend 90% of a date responding to text messages and posting to Facebook.

I'm sure the trend will reverse eventually. I'm just not sure if the reversal will come in time to do me any good.

I ended up caught in the crossfire of the no-fault divorce trend that started apparently in the 60's and is probably peaking or near the peak. As the economy unravels I'm sure some women will begin to realize they need a provider besides the state or their career. (See Aurini's "The Corporate Boyfriend").

As I'm reading The Fourth Turning (which I highly recommend), I'm starting to see partly why history flows in cycles. In a period of about four generations, whenever something happens, it will affect each generation according to where they are in life when the event occurs. According to Strauss and Howe, with a cycle of four generations, there are alternating crises and awakenings. These imprint on each generation differently.

Consider my generation, which we call Generation X. We're also the 13th generation to be born as Americans.In Stauss and Howe's paradigm, we fit the generational archetype of the nomad. There are also four turnings or eras that flow through this  generational cycle, and the generational archetypes occur like this:

A Prophet generation is born during a high
A Nomad generation is born during an Awakening
A Hero generation is born during an Unraveling
An  Artist generation is born during a Crisis
(P19)

Note that these are archetypes. This does not mean that every member of the Hero generation is a hero; only that their generation in the cycle fits a certain archetype. I tried to explain this to two members of the current hero generation and I had to get a huge pin to let the air out of their egos. Likewise, not every member of an artist generation is artistic; only that they fit an archetype that was overprotected by the prior hero generation that gave birth to them. They also come of age during a high, so they enter adulthood at a different stage and it impacts the character of their generation differently. Also note that from here on out in this post, I use the terms "boomer" and "prophet" interchangeably. I am referring to the current generation called Baby Boomers who fit the archetype of the prophet generation in the current cycle.

So going back to the depression and World War II, the Artists were born about that time, during the generational crisis. Now remember that one generation doesn't necessarily give birth to the next. My dad was born in 1946, so I always assumed he was a boomer, and I'm Gen X, but this isn't the case as the line between the artists and boomer prophets isn't clearly defined. It's "approximately 1946". 

The Baby Boomer prophet generation was born during the high following WWII. My nomad Gen X generation was born during the "Consciousness Awakening" of the 60's and 70's. We were largely underprotected, in fact we were the generation called "latchkey kids", since often both our parents worked and we came home to a box of cereal and television. 

The current Millennial "hero" generation was born during the unraveling when my generation came of age. Apparently, my generation will give birth to the next cycle of artists. Since we were largely underprotected, we're likely to overprotect our children, although that may be hard to do because as part of the unraveling, my soon to be ex wife decided to divorce me.

Let's pause here to consider how coming of age in different parts of this cycle will affect you. I came of age in the 90's, at a time when suddenly you weren't guaranteed employment. The prior generations had told me to find a good job and stick with it. That didn't happen for me. And the current millennial "hero" generation is also finding it harder than I did, but most of them were forced to go to college. So now they have expensive degrees and student loans, and can't find work. Consider how this will affect their generation later in life, compared to the artist and prophet generations graduated high school and could realistically expect to stay with one job for 20-40 years. 

The hero generation millennials are coming of age during the current crisis part of the cycle, which the authors projected to start somewhere in the mid 00's (the book was copyrighted in 1997). They project the crisis to peak around 2025. They have no idea what the crisis will be, only that it will follow the pattern. I'm trying to figure out myself what the crisis will be. I'm coming up empty unless it has to do with massive government debt and economic bubbles based on popular flawed Keynesian models. Maybe it will be another war. I don't know.

At the time the hero generation is coming of age, my nomad generation is entering midlife. So whatever the crisis is, we'll probably shoulder most of the work, but they'll grow up getting the credit for it.

The authors made an interesting point with Star Wars. These generational archetypes in the context of the Star Wars universe would put Han Solo as a nomad, looking down at Luke Skywalker's hero generation and looking up at Darth Vader and Obi Won's prophet generation that created the freaking mess in the first place. Boomers frustrate me.

Although as I read this book, I'm finding an assumption I operated under might be incorrect to a point. I tend to blame a lot of the cultural mess (the unraveling preceding the crisis) on the Baby Boomer generation. I could be wrong. It is currently the artist generation that is still largely running the show prior to their retirement. Artists as an archetype are known for being compromisers. I'm thinking some of our mess could be the artists screwing things up combined with the boomers slowly taking over.

My prediction to the mess the boomers put us into is that they are too lazy, too stupid, too impatient, and too ignorant to hide their mess and corruption like the previous generations did. I don't think boomers are any less corrupt than any other generation in history. They're just not as good at hiding it. Look at things like MF Global and NSA spying. They're not even trying to hide it.

The media is so damned obvious about what it won't report on, it's comical. I've been saying for weeks that Edward Snowden should change his name to Ben Ghazi. Then you'd never hear a word about him because the "mainstream media" won't touch Benghazi. Or change his name to Kermit Goznell. Same thing. He'll be out of media mention immediately. 

Wait until my nomad generation gets in charge. At least we'll be able to hide our corruption better. AND WE'LL LET YOU TELEWORK! Something the boomers and artists are afraid of. I guess they think everybody else is as stupid and lazy as they are, and if they let us telework, we'll f*ck off just like they do. So they force us to sit in traffic every day because they have no objective way to measure work besides your butt being in a chair. Like we're cranking out widgets or cheeseburgers or something.

I can't help it. It's long been a point of generational frustration for me.

This is just three and a half chapters into the book. It's fascinating to me. I highly recommend it. Please consider buying it from my Amazon affiliate link to help me through my fukenfurloren and divorce.

Thoughts on Atlas Shrugged

I don't think I'm going to do this as a book review. I'd say the book is well enough known that I don't have to describe the plot in detail.



Lately, the kind of blogs and YouTube channels I follow often speak of "Going Galt", which I knew came from Atlas Shrugged. Recently, I was walking down a street with a few companions. We passed a car with a bumper sticker advertising a popular Presidential/Vice Presidential candidate from the last couple selection cycles. One companion said those stickers cause him to want to smash windows out of the car. (He obviously does not; that would be vandalism.) I commented that those stickers cause me to want to "Go Galt", and remove my productive capacity and tax paying from the economy, and leave those people to the world they think they value. I guess I understood the point to Atlas Shrugged before I read it, except once I "Go Galt", I don't have a reentry plan.

I started getting into Atlas Shrugged this year (a few weeks after the incident in the previous paragraph). I'd heard of Ayn Rand more than a decade ago, and read many quotes and summaries of her works. Earlier this year. I was trolling Netflix, and found "The Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged". It was an interesting documentary, so I watched the first part of the movie and bought the book.

This summer, I saw part II of the movie and finally started reading the book.

The writing isn't bad. For the most part, as a libertarian, I don't have a problem with most of her philosophy. Obviously, thinking people aren't likely to agree on every point, and so Rand and I don't, but I enjoy quite a bit of her view of the world.

The sex scenes in her book, at first, made me wonder if Ayn Rand ever actually had sex herself, or if she had normal people sex. The dialog when Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart first scored was my first clue. All that talk about sex being animalistic.

I know Rand was an atheist. I know from a Christian standpoint, some people have kind of a pious dislike for the concept of sex, at least externally. Nobody knows what they think on the inside, or what they're hiding, because it seems the people who project the strictest image almost always end up hiding the biggest perversions. I'm not sure how the atheist "piety" against sex fits in, but when sex comes up in the book, it often seemed to be considered animalistic in the minds of the characters.

As I reached the end of the book, I think the animalistic part of sex she writes of may have been a stab at the dualistic nature man is forced to take by the world's thinking. (This, I believe, fits both Rand's atheistic worldview and my Christian worldview). By the time John Galt bangs Dagny in the railroad tunnel, it's never mentioned. Part of Hank Reardon's break was recognizing that the only power his wife and her world had on him was him submitting to their values. Once he stopped caring what they thought of him, he was free.

I'm trying to decide how to describe the characters. They're not entirely flat or two dimensional, but I will say they all seem to converge on a few points. Any time somebody delivers a monologue or speech, it's the same voice. It doesn't matter if the monologue is delivered by Reardon, d'Anconia, the pirate Ragnar, or John Galt, it is the same voice. The speeches by the parasites and looters suffer from the same uniformity. But this is probably what happens when a philosopher uses fiction to communicate a message.

Everybody also seems to converge into the same stoicness when confronted. d'Anconia always stoically defers to Reardon, as does Ragnar, no matter how much abuse is heaped upon him. I'd love to think a man so dedicated to delivering me from a "Plato's Cave" would be so dedicated to my attempts to defend the cave.

The book wasn't too dated, except for newspapers, trains, and long distance phone lines. Other than that, it's not so much set in time. The movies seem to have worked around this seamlessly; where people have BlackBerries and instead of newspapers, they're watching Faux News. The second movie has text at the beginning explaining that economic reasons caused a resurgence of rail travel. This probably should have been in the first movie, which left some people wondering how rail travel was important enough in our time to justify this movie.

Also, the privately owned companies aren't quite as common now. There wouldn't be a "Reardon Steel"; it would probably be a subsidiary or AT&T or Monsanto or something. I'm not sure how the "Equalization of Opportunity" act would work now. The book depended on all businesses being privately owned, but still having stockholders and boards.

Rand gives voice to my "Cargo Cult Riches" theory even though she doesn't call it that. The characters surrounding the disposition of the 20th Century Motor Company claim "I had everything Starnes did, and I should have been able to succeed!" Yeah, everything but knowing what to do with it, and knowing how to run a successful business.

Rand raises an interesting point on page 737, where the philosophy professor, Hugh Akston, asks "What is wrong with a philosopher running a diner?" Indeed. Also, earlier in the book, the doctor from the "State Science Institute" seems to believe that the great scientific minds should be sequestered away in his government, non-profit center. He implies it's wrong for great minds to work on commercial products.

I think this mentality that if a man is truly great at something, he should only work in a certain field is bullshit. What is wrong with a philosopher running a diner? I don't see anything. Imagine being able to go in for a cup of coffee and a discussion with a great mind, without having to go to college. What is wrong with an engineer or scientist working on a results based commercial product that will ultimately drive the economy? We seem to have turned professors into some kind of priesthood, where you must go to the temple in order to obtain their knowledge. This is wrong.

Besides, this whole "hyper specialization" thing is wrong. In some cases, sure a man may need to hyper focus on a narrow topic, but not all. What's wrong with having a broad base of knowledge? I don't believe in a single-discipline approach to life. I'm committed to learning outside of my field. I've studied theology, philosophy, economics, history, weather. I prefer a multi-disciplinary approach to live and work.

I didn't make a note in the book or highlight the passage, but I saw some Orwell pop up in the form of "freedom is slavery". I have no idea if it was a hat tip to Orwell. I don't even know if Ayn Rand read his book.

The looter (liberal) mindset seemed accurate enough. They keep passing regulations and taking control over the economy, while it falls apart farther with each new act. Then when they ask Dagny or John Galt what to do, and they reply "What about cutting regulation?" they reply "Oh, no, we couldn't do that! There's an emergency going on! But you have to tell us how to fix it. You can tell us how to fix it!" Idiots.

This is the kind of mentality I see all the time. "Schools are failing because there isn't enough money". "OK, here's more money. Wait, schools are still failing." "Yeah, schools are failing because there isn't enough money". At what point do you start to ask whether money is the deciding factor? The economy is in a slide because Keynesian models say there isn't enough government spending. Yet we have record levels of government spending and debt. But those who follow the Keynesian models seem to think we need more. Sure, 16 Trillion isn't enough. Would the economy work with 20 trillion in debt? (No, but they'd argue for it anyway, even though it won't work).

The book ended kind of vague. Eddie Willers was trying to start a dead train. I guess he died with it. Then the book switches back to Galt's Gulch where the main characters are planning their comeback. I figured more than halfway through the book that Eddie Willers probably deserved a spot in Galt's Gulch, but it was Ayn Rand's book and I guess she disagreed.

The biggest problem with "Going Galt" or running away is, you'll be followed. I assume by the time Galt & crew decided to come back and bring their minds and production capacity with them, the world had collapsed far enough they would get no resistance. But how long would it be before the "looters" start back up? "You have so much. You're greedy. You should sacrifice your profits because other people need things. You should give them jobs they can't do. You have plenty of jobs."

Then the cycle repeats. I have a lot of conservative and libertarian friends who talk about leaving and forming their own society. I keep reminding them that if they pull off a productive, free society, liberals will start infiltrating and bringing their values with them, and we'll be right back to square one. So while the return of Atlas might get a few generations, surely the cycle will repeat eventually. Rand didn't address that as far as I know. I'm planning to read some of her other books, so maybe she covers it somewhere else.

My own idea for "Going Galt" is far less complicated. My idea is to divorce myself from a nationality. I'll get passports from a few different nations, and spread my assets around so no one country can ruin me. Most people think expatriation is packing up their 2400 square foot house in America and relocating it somewhere else, and picking up where they leave off. I don't see it that way. Expatriation to me means having any and no nationality. I'm a citizen of me. We'll see if I ever get it pulled off or not.



As a side note, while drafting this blog post, I came across some excerpts from Ayn Rand's column in People in the early 80's before her death. She makes an interesting comment during some reference to a speed prescription, which supposedly led to her challenging Liza Minneli to a jaguar roaring contest and writing a 25,000 word extra chapter to Atlas Shrugged by biting through toilet paper:

 Because Ronald Reagan has deposed Jimmy Carter, and I predict that by 2013 my influence will be profound, and a new generation of leaders will hallow my name, and devotion to self-interest and capitalism and the free market will not be the exception but the rule, and these leaders will naturally share my disapproval of religion, my support of abortion rights, and my love of Godiva chocolates. I have to stop writing now, because I have chewed through my typewriter.

It stood out to me because this is 2013, and her book is undergoing a resurgence about this time. It has never actually been out of print. I obviously don't agree with all her opinions, but consider her an insightful philosopher nonetheless.

She's mostly a talented writer. Can you imagine how dry Atlas Shrugged would be if it were non-fiction?

You can buy it here.

Book Review: Decision Points by George W. Bush's Ghostwriter

It took me about two months to get through Decision Points. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to read it. I found it in the library and decided to give it a shot. At points I considered stopping it and moving on to another book.

This book won't win any literary awards. It's written in the simple, plain-spoken style the former President speaks in. You can almost hear his voice in your head as you read it. His ghostwriter, who was his chief speechwriter at the end of his Presidency, did a great job of capturing his voice.

I give this book three stars out of five, but not for the reasons you might think. I am neither a Republicrat nor a Demonican. I consider myself a libertarian, but I'm starting to slide toward being an anarchist. So whether I agree with the former President or not is not a consideration in my review. I give it three stars because it was a chore to read. While a few sections were fairly exciting and gave me a glimpse into GWB's mind at the time the events were transpiring, other sections seemed like his ghostwriter went to great lengths to justify his decision long after the point was made. The chapter on Iraq was one such part of the book It just kept going on, and on, and on, long after he laid out the events and reasons why he made his decision for it.  At one point, I felt like I was reading a book by a pastor who had long since made his point but kept going with anecdote after anecdote for no good reason, probably just to puff of the page length of the book. I don't think "Decision Points" suffered from a lack of material for length, so it felt like he just kept going to try to justify Iraq.

Aurini- Generational Theory and the Upcoming Crisis

I've heard of "The Fourth Turning" before. I haven't read it yet. It's on my list. But if you love the application of the cyclical nature of history to predictions of where we're going in the future, then carve an hour out of your schedule and watch this:




It's mindblowing. I'm going to step up my efforts to get "The Fourth Turning" into my reading list.

Bismarck: A Comedy of Errors

I love history. The parts of history I especially love are when events did not occur the way they were supposed to. I'm going to have to string together some YouTube videos to make my point, but I hope it will be worth it.

Growing up, my Dad often played that song "We Gotta Sink the Bismarck". I wasn't entirely sure what that meant at the time, but having studied WWII, I know what it is. It was supposed to be a really bad assed battleship, yet it didn't work out the way they wanted it to.

In this video below, Nazi Supership, I learned something I didn't know before. OK, I know the Bismarck set sail and didn't refuel, although how can such a large ship be low on fuel after just 3 days? I could see the destroyer I was on doing that, although we once spent 2 weeks doing 20 knots across the Pacific from Pearl Harbor until the USNS San Jose refueled us near Guam. Then in the Persian Gulf where we were doing only 2 knots, we refueled every other day.

I also knew the Bismarck was pretty much shut down by a lucky hit from a British torpedo bomber that knocked out its rudder.

But I didn't know this:


According to "Nazi Supership", there were even more comedies of errors. Bismarck set sail with an out of date, not quite finished, anti-aircraft system. I worked on an anti-missile/anti-aircraft system in the U.S. Navy. In addition to apparently having a 5 gallon gas tank, the first time the Bismarck fired its main guns, it knocked out its RADAR. Idiots. The Bismark was operating with a heavy cruiser, but they split up to accomplish a mission.

I can't say the RADAR going down with the first gun fire is entirely the engineers' fault though. On the destroyer I was on, occasionally the shock from firing our 5" 54 caliber guns resulted in circuit boards in our Mark 86 Gun Fire Control System shutting down. They had to find the circuit board, reseat it, and continue with the shoot. It didn't happen often. But our ship was designed to survive the shock of its own guns. Bismark apparently wasn't. At least, the sensitive and primitive RADAR wasn't.

The British apparently underestimated the Hood, which was a WWI veteran. Hood was the flagship, but one "lucky" hit by Bismarck sent Hood to the bottom of the ocean faster than you could finish a smoke.

Prince of Wales (the other British ship) scored a "lucky" hit on Bismarck's bow, rupturing a fuel tank, compounding the decision to not refuel earlier in the voyage.The video says Bismarck had to reduce speed, but didn't say why. My guess is, faster speeds equal more fuel burned. Apparently, Bismarck had enough to make France (which the Nazis occupied at the time) at a reduced speed, but not if it went at full speed. That's only my guess at this point.

The final comedy of errors was a single lucky hit by an antiquated British torpedo bomber, right in Bismarck's rudder. Without a rudder, a ship is toast. Remove your steering wheel and see how far your car gets.

I like science fiction, but when I watch shows like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc, and I see the "epic" ship battles, I keep wanting to scream "Just hit them in the engines! Without propulsion, they're toast!" But, even Sci Fi has to take a long walk to get a a faulty plot. Without the "epic" battles, the show or movie would be far shorter. The Battlestar Galactica pilot would have lasted about an hour if the Cylons took out Galactica's engines at first. Nope, hit them with a nuke in the side. Yeah, that should do it. At least we got 4 seasons out of it.

It would have been cool, if, after taking Bismarck out of the game, the British towed it into port. But they decided to finish it off. I have to admire the German engineering. Bismarck took a hell of a pounding. Even after losing the ability to fight back, it still took a lot of abuse before finally sinking. And there's speculation the Germans scuttled the ship, rather than the British sank it on their own.

So, what can we learn from Bismarck?

1) Just take on gas. If you're on a maiden voyage on an untested vessel, just keep the tanks full when you can.
2) Don't get cocky. All it takes is one lucky hit to shut you down.
3) Just keep the ship under construction a few extra weeks until all the fire control is up to par.

But we can be glad the Germans followed precisely none of this advice.

Perspective From History

We just dodged yet another apocalyptic prediction. Like any of them are likely to happen. I've wondered what will be next. Apparently, people are predicting solar flares in 2020 that will wipe out all our electronics.

I love to read history. One of the greatest gifts history gives me is perspective. A lot of us in America seem to imagine we're the first society ever to collapse. Sure, we know about Rome and plenty of other empires throughout history, but that's all far and away.

Christians in particular (disclosure, I count myself as such) get a lot of mileage from apocalyptic scenarios. The decline of our society (the west in general and America in particular) surely signals the end of days.

I came across this gem earlier. From "The Last Days of the Romanovs" Chapter 12 " Something has happened to them in there" which accounts for the events of Sunday, 14 July, 1918. Page 167:

Consoled and reassured by Father Storozhev's service, and confident of the resurrection to come, Alexandra spent the rest of the day lying on her bed making lace and having the scriptures read to her when the others went out for their walk. Her choice of extracts from the 12 books of the Minor Prophets offered appropriate parables for the present state of Russia. Olga and Tatiana had read to her from Hosea- a book of dark and melancholy prophecy about the sins of Israel that had brought the country great national disasters. The apocalyptic tones of chapter four seemed to mirror what was now happening in their own country - a place where there was 'no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God'. In Russia, just as in Israel, 'blood toucheth blood' as the country descended into internecine strife. Russia was a land in mourning where the people had rejected 'knowledge' - i.e. religion - and were now suffering for it. Further gloom and despondency followed in the readings from Joel, which prophesied a cataclysm over a land of Israel faced with desolation, plague and famine as punishment for its sins. God soon would swoop down in vengeance and sweep it all away: 'Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is night at hand'.

So the Tsarita (Empress- or the wife of the Tsar) saw the decline of Russia in the WWI days similar to how many of us see the west in our present day 94 years later and on the other side of the world. She linked parallels in Russia to the prophets of the Bible.

I'm not saying we're wrong to read the prophets and say "wow, that sounds just like today!" I'm just saying we're not the first. We may or may not be the last. Let's just keep our heads on straight and keep our perspective about history and the rest of the world, which apparently exists outside of U.S. borders.

By the way, the ENTIRE ROYAL FAMILY, that is the Tsar, his wife, their four daughters, and their son (the heir to the throne) and several of their servants were EXECUTED in cold blood by the Bolsheviks just 3 days later, on 17 July 1918. Bastards.

Interesting Quote

This is from Tacitus:

Death is the natural end for all alike, and the only difference is between fame and oblivion afterwards. Seeing that the same end awaits the innocent and the guilty, a man of spirit should at least deserve his fate.'

Almost sounds like it came from Ecclesiastes.

Tacitus is a free Kindle download.

Book Review: In The Footsteps of Dracula by Steven P. Unger

I was offered a chance to review "In the Footsteps of Dracula" by the author, Steve Unger. Steve contacted me directly to ask if I was interested in reviewing his book. He provided me a pdf copy of the book. The book is subtitled "A personal journey and travel guide". It is published by World Audience Publishers.

This is the second edition. In the notes to the second edition, one of the reasons given for a new edition is to correct a few factual errors. I have a lot of respect for authors who can do this. I can barely turn out a 200 word blog post without finding errors in it later. I have no idea how much horror I'd feel to publish a book and discover that I missed something. The second edition also updates prices and Internet links since the original publication in 2005 or 2006.

Reading Books Together

I've always been an avid reader. Perhaps not a productive reader, but I've always been reading something. The only time I remember not reading is when I was 3 or 4 and discovered my uncle was dyslectic. I didn't know what that meant. All I know is we were visiting and I asked him to read my favorite book to me (Richard Scary's What Do People Do All Day at the time). I had the book memorized even though I couldn't read it. He was unable to read and tried to wing it. I threw the 3 year old version of the BS flag. My kids are fairly smart, but seem to have a little more tact than I did at their ages.

This past Spring, a friend and I decided to begin a regimen of reading books together. We agreed to pick a book and read a certain amount each week. Then get together weekly to talk about it. For our first book, it worked out to be a chapter a week. We recently started our second book.

It's been fun. I assume we'll stick to non-fiction books. It's interesting not only to discuss what stood out to you in a book, but to see what someone else gets out of it.

Our first book was Randy Alcorn's Heaven. We ended up stopping around Chapter 32 and finishing the book independently. The last several chapters were like micro-subjects, where he delved deeper into ideas brought up earlier in the book. It became less productive to take the book in chapter sized bites.

For our next book, we're doing The Life of Abraham Lincoln. There is a free Kindle edition available.


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Documentary: Rick Steves’ Iran

I made a note a while back to watch this documentary. I have no idea how long ago it was. I was going through some of my tasks today, and found it.

The documentary is about 55 minutes long. It’s a cultural look at Iran. The only reason the camera crew was allowed to film by the government is because it was cultural, rather than political.

I enjoyed it. From every account I’ve ever heard, if we could get our politicians to shut the hell up for a few minutes, I believe we would have much in common with the citizens of Iran. By all accounts, they are very kind, friendly, and would make great neighbors.

I understand there are implications in geo-politics, but lets not forget, when the politics end, they are still people just like us. I enjoyed this, and I have to admit, I would love to visit Iran, land of thousands of years of history. Land of Cyrus the Great. Even after he conquered the Greeks (before the rise of Alexander) the Greeks called Cyrus a “just and worthy lawgiver”.

If you have a chance, watch this documentary.

Book Review: 5 Cities That Ruled the World by Douglas Wilson

I’ve had this book for a long time. I think I got it in October or November. But, with some of the changes in my life, I had to reprioritize. I started reading books about getting a new job or working as a freelancer. Unfortunately, this one didn’t make it back up to the top of my ever-growing book pile again. It seems like the entire world changed since I first got this book. The program that I got the book from, Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Bloggers, has been completely redesigned as “Booksneeze”. Try them out if you’d like to get free books in exchange for a 200 word review.

5 Cities That Ruled the World is a history book. But this isn’t boring, academic history. It’s not overly simplified either. Douglas Wilson declares his thesis, or the purpose for this book, in the 2nd paragraph on page xi:

Here we will consider the stories and legacies of the great cities of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York and what they mean to us.

They ruled the world in a unique way, unlike other cities. No earthly city can rule the world forever, but many more than five have ruled the political world temporarily. These five have been singled out because, despite their moments of glory shared with many others, they have also had an enormous influence down to the present day.

I’ll summarize the point here simplistically: Jerusalem gave us spirit. Athens gave us democracy. Rome gave us law. London gave us literature. New York gave us commerce.

The book is not that simplistic though. I believe that Douglas Wilson gives us his point in a well written, amusing manner. Easygoing humor is sprinkled throughout the book, and is always good for a chuckle.

I love history. History is a subject that gets me really excited. As such, I can’t say that this book gave me much new information. Certainly, I learned a lot from it. I really appreciated Douglas Wilson’s perspective on history. It was definitely a nice break from the business and job hunting books I’ve been reading a lot of lately.

My verdict: get this book.You can buy it from my affiliate link below.

Cracked: The 6 Most Insane Moral Panics in American History

I came across an interesting article at Cracked about the 6 Most Insane Moral Panics in American History. As with all Cracked material, the language can be a little raw, so you should know that going in if it's an issue for you.

The article discusses moral panics like Comic Books, Dungeons and Dragons, Satanic subliminal messages in heavy metal, and Satanic ritual abuse.

Dungeons and Dragons

I was growing up when most of the moral panics were happening. I can remember some kind of stink about video games as well. As with all moral panics, I think there is a lot of excitability and a lack of critical thinking involved.

Let's take Dungeons and Dragons as an example. I remember one time in the early 80's when we were stationed in Germany. My dad came home with some D&D material. I don't think he had much. He had some cardboard tiles to make a dungeon out of. Maybe a book or two. He was excited about playing D&D with my brother and I. Then, nothing happened.

I asked him later why we never did anything with it. He said something about some kids were playing in a storm drain, and it flooded and killed them. Somehow, it was the fault of Dungeons and Dragons. I never really understood it. I even asked him if he really thought I was so stupid that I'd think it was OK to play in a storm drain just because I played Dungeons and Dragons. He didn't think so, but somehow the idea that some kids' deaths were related to the game kept him from playing it with us.

When I got a little bit older, I bought a Basic D&D kit. I played a little bit with a friend of mine. Then we got into AD&D for a while. Then I realized it was boring and I walked away from it. I couldn't get into it, and it wasn't worth trying anymore.

I've read some of the literature against D&D. I've read Jack Chick's stuff. I read William Schoenbelon's claims that the creators of D&D consulted with him as a high-level warlock to ensure accuracy of the material with the occult. Even if it's all true, I still believe that if people are going to do stupid, insane, or unsafe things, they don't need D&D to do it.

Comic Books

I never could get into comic books. The villains were dumb, the heros were cheesy, I wasn't impressed with a panel taken up by a "BAM!" or "SOCK!", and I had better things to do than worry about "Wait! I'm missing the 4th issue of the 31st edition!" I don't know the difference between Marvel and DC Comics. That is, I couldn't tell you which comic went under which label. I also don't feel like I'm missing out on anything because I can't. I'm not likely to end up on Jeopardy. 

I bought a Lobo comic once. It was amusing. I could have followed Lobo, but I couldn't be troubled to make sure I had EVERY SINGLE ISSUE so I didn't bother.

I think the moral panic surrounding comic books was silly.

Satanic Subliminal Messages in Heavy Metal

I agree with Cracked's assessment of this one. If a metal band had the idea to implant a subliminal message, "Buy more of our stuff!" would be more like it. Actually, I'd expect that to be placed by the record companies, which seem to have a direct communication link to evil. Of course, the Compact Disc rendered the "play a record backwards to hear our Satanic altar call" obsolete. When I was a teenager and this was going on, I couldn't understand why everybody appeared to be worked up over this. Of course, I didn't listen to much Heavy Metal at the time. Trans-Siberian Orchestra didn't exist.

I can remember an image of old people sitting around churches late at night listening to metal records backwards and painstakingly transcribing the Satanic messages supposedly implanted in them. 

I think history bears out that this moral panic was a huge overreaction to nothing.

Conclusion

I'm not denying that there are moral reason why we should get worried. There are moral issues that need to be confronted. But most of the moral panics that show up in popular culture are not those moral issues. At best, they are symptoms.

For Such A Time As This

I had a thought recently. I was listening to one of the many podcasts I try to cram into a week. One of the guests claimed that he really should have lived during the American Revolution.

I can’t say, at least since my teen years, that I’ve ever thought I belonged somewhere else. At one point, probably because of a cheesy movie I rented one summer vacation before I had my driver’s license, that I might have enjoyed living in the 1950’s.

Not so anymore. I don’t claim any Biblical, like, Ester type prophesy about being born “for such a time as this”, but I definitely feel like I’m living in the correct era. Sure, we face all kinds of financial and political challenges that are, frankly, terrifying. But as an engineer and a computer geek, and as an amateur historian and philosopher, I think I’m living in the right time.

How ‘bout you? Do you belong in 2010? Or do you wish (or “feel like”) you should have lived in another time? Which time was it?

Dude, the White House Goes Web 2.0!

This is an interesting surprise. The White House now has a blog, already complete with RSS. President Obama (please bear with me while I adjust to that as I wasn’t as enthusiastic as some of you) plans to have an open and transparent government. That will be interesting. I’m fairly cynical, and when I read that line in the White House’s first blog post, I immediately thought of former-President Clinton’s promise to have the most ethical administration in history.

I didn’t agree with the new President in many of his policies and proposed solutions, but now that he’s in office, it is my duty to support him as I am able, and of course to pray for him.

At this point, the best we can do is watch. I will say that while I don’t agree with many of his policies and proposed solutions, I do respect the man in many ways.

Anyway, I’ve already got the White House blog in my Google Reader feeds. I’ll pray for the new President as he goes through BlackBerry withdrawals. That would hurt me.

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