Welcome To The Kakistocracy

Kakistocracy  Candidates are the Darlings
of Corporate Media

Kakistocracy is a form of government where the least qualified individuals are in power. It comes from the Greek κακιστος (kakistos) meaning “worst”), the superlative of κακος (kakos) meaning “bad”.

Pretty much every cable news network as well as most corporate news outlets run non-stop stories on about 20 Republican Candidates that desire to be President of the United States!

Most notably is Donald Trump who made a fuss (poorly veiled racism) about Obama's birth certificate and claimed Mexican immigrants where rapist and criminals. In addition he questioned John McCain's status as a war hero because he got caught??? The reason Trump did not get caught is you can't catch someone hiding behind deferments tucked away safely in the US out of harms way!

Yet one theme common among these candidates is an unbridled desire to send your love ones into harms way. I look at the Donald Trump phenomenon as well as the other war hawk candidates and wonder why kind of society would even consider such under qualified people to make critical decisions for them. It boils down to such a society is called a kakistokracy!  

Here are some common traits and characteristics of these candidates:

Highly religious and outspoken about their religion to such a point where their religious zeal blinds their objectivity and drives them to force a society to adhere to their religious and moral values. Abortion is an obsession to these folks to such an extent they would force a woman to die of medical complications rather than granting an abortion.  Rick Santorium stated that the child of a woman raped should be considered a gift from God. 

Funny I thought our constitution was serious about separation of Church and State......in a Kakistokracy this is not so!

Most of these candidates are middle-aged or older white males with a love of guns and wars and a loathing for black and brown people and so called "illegals"! They spout their Christian love and at the same time love guns, war and the death penalty.  Their fundamental shortcoming is their lack of empathy for any human beings that deviate from their ideal! 

Their religion and lack of empathy or human understanding generates attitudes destructive to our very planet and it's inhabitants including all forms of life. Earth has been disrespected because of religious beliefs that the universe was created for man's pleasure and plunder. The evidence is in our fragile space ship is constant attack by greed driven corporations under the warm approval of the politicians that have been bought by these companies. The Republican party and it's right wing or Tea Party arm relishes corporate power and is tirelessly working on dismantling environmental protections that fly in the face of corporate profits. Their mantra is privatization and it does not take much digging to see how wonderful this concept is. Universities, prisons, Social Security, Medicare are all under threat by privatization. For profit schools rake the government student loan programs valiantly assisting students to get student loans for obscene tuition's and an education that is worthless leaving the student in unsupportable debt. This corporate manipulation is prevalent in all for profit endeavors, health care, prisons, and private armies to name some.  

 Mike Huckabee:  In August of 1998, Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full page USA Today Ad which declared: "I affirm the statement on the family issued by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention." What was in the family statement from the SBC?  "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."

Recently  he would consider involving the FBI and federal troops in his mad crusade to prevent abortions.

“I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced — forced at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.” — YouTube, Rediscover God in America conference.

Lastly for Mike, he has a friend called Ted Nugent, enough said!

Chris Christie, this man is good at making enemies and rattling peoples cages. Politically I don't agree with him but more important is his attitude towards animals.  The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated, a saying attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. Christie vetoed a bi-partisan bill that would give sows more pen room to make their lives a little easier. You would think a man of his girth would have more empathy for animals in such confined spaces. Did I mention these guys don't seem to have a lot of empathy for people or animals. 

Sen. Marco Rubio  was among the Florida state legislators who voted for the so-called "Scarlet Letter" law in 2001 that required single mothers to publish their sexual histories in the newspaper in order to place their babies up for adoption.

Scott Walker: Speaking to reporters [in Iowa] Saturday after an appearance at the Family Leader Summit, Walker said the next president will need to be prepared to take aggressive action against Iran, "very possibly" including military strikes, on the day he or she is inaugurated, and said he would not be comfortable with a commander in chief who is unwilling to act aggressively on day one of a new presidency.

Ted Cruz:  The Texas senator and Tea Party favorite was the first to throw his hat into the ring on March 23. A committed Southern Baptist, Cruz has been outspoken about religious freedom, both at home and abroad, and has taken a strong stance against same-sex marriage. He is currently seeking to introduce legislation to protect each state's right to make its own decision on the issue.

Jeb Bush: When asked by a citizen about ISIS Jeb blamed Obama. The citizen correctly informed Mr Bush that ISIS was created by his war criminal brother and his despicable administration.  

I shudder to think if one of these candidates had been elected President instead of Obama what a mess we as Americans would be in right now. When a person lacks empathy they lack all rational understanding which results in being ignorant of who they are! If they knew who they were they would not be so eager to bomb and maim other people.  

    

Hullucinating Lone Wolf

Seal Rocks San Francisco

I've been struggling to get a handle on the data available such as historic temperature and humidity records to try an grapple with the changes occurring on the San Mateo Coast climate wise. I've been feeling the changes for about 3-4 years now but I seem to be a lone wolf in this "feeling" as most people I bring this up to look at me like I'm hallucinating! I thought surely it's warmer and there is less fog, this should be demonstrable thru historic weather data. I did find that in January 2014 the average temperature was approximately 7 degrees higher than historical records for San Francisco Airport. However other months I checked around that time had much less variation in temperature! Later I turned to humidity data as my sense is increased humidity is an integral part of the climate puzzle. However I'm not a meteorologist and examining humidity data shed no light for me as the fog plays a big roll in skewing the humidity data. Looking at the data on foggy days coastside humidity is 100% and humidity varies widely throughout the day varying with the ebb and flow of the fog.

On about April 3rd 2015 I felt that distinctive AC coolness return after a long absence! By accident I found out that the local ocean temperature holding at about 57 degrees F for several months dropped to about 52 F. This held thru May and early June and during this period I found my self overjoyed every time that wonderful cool air enveloped my body.

On about July 5th the most bizarre aspect of this 4 year drought occurred and continues today July 8th in a somewhat reduced fashion. The ocean temperature at buoy 46012 off Half Moon Bay shot up to 65 F rapidly in a few hours a good 10+ degrees above normal. Although a heavy fog was attached to the coast line the humidity was so high at my residence I was sweating heavily and uncomfortable at 7 pm, something I've never experience in my 16 year stay on the coast. Again on July 6th the ocean temperature soared to 65 F once again. Just writing this I can sense most people will think big deal, but this is a really big deal for the coastside and the state of California and for the world! Now buoy 46012 is more an accurate predictor than other data I've been following.

Computer models are now predicting a significant  El Niño event perhaps even an historical event. I'm getting further and further away from the thought that our climate will return to normal, thats a concern for me as I thrive in a Mediterranean type climate typical of the central California coast. On a positive note, we may see more southern species wildlife such as boobies, frigates and other southern climate birds and marine mammals! 

Since July 6th 2015 up to July 12 2015 the water temperature at the buoy has reached 65 degree F everyday. I'm currently researching the records for such a warm period but believe this clip is unprecedented. Notice the CDAS chart, the Pacific is basically on fire right now!

Buoy 46012 Standard Deviation
11/19/80-7/2007

Deviation from Historical Data
Compiled 7/13/15

August 4, 2015 Update

Conditions are currently warming up in the Pacific, and the NOAA Climate Prediction Center expects a greater than 90% chance that El Nino will continue through the winter and most likely into the spring. This image shows the July 13-19, 2015 sea surface temperature departure from the 1981-2010 average. In addition to the warmer than normal waters generated by the El Nino conditions, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is also creating persistently higher than normal sea surface temperatures in the northeastern Pacific. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

The Vast Wasteland

Cable New beats a page two story to death!

"Television and the Public Interest" was a speech given by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Newton N. Minow to the convention of the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961. The speech was Minow's first major speech after he was appointed chairman of the FCC by President John F Kennedy. In the speech, Minow referred to American commercial television programming as a "vast wasteland" and advocated for programming in the public interest.

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it."

54 years later the only thing to have change in the TV wasteland is the vastness, now there are hundreds of mindless TV channels to choose from! I’m in the mood for a little rant about Television especially after spending a good amount of time in the hospital with no books, computer or smart phone, only a TV screen about 3 feet from my head. So yes out of boredom I verified Mr. Minow's experiment many times. Yes true to scientific experiments it is repeatable and verifiable! I’m astounded why books are not more popular as a brief exposure to TV should surely send book sales skyrocketing!

Let’s take a look at the corporate approach to TV and advertisers. From the beginning TV was not possible without revenue from corporate sponsors. So the dilemma for TV people was how we can hold the interest of our viewer’s in-between commercials. So this is where modern TV programming sprung from, and the TV show was born. Soon a variety of TV shows was created and continues to be created today in an effort to hold viewers’ attention between commercials.

Guess what the powers to be found out? The quality and content of the fillers didn’t matter any junk they could come up with worked just as well. Thus we have the TV of today and yesterday a vast pile of moronic content emanating from every channel. Don’t believe me, turn your TV on and flip thru the channels, firstly you’re going to get advertisements (mostly dishonest) , infomercials, and misleading (actually immoral) pharmaceutical ads. Turning on your TV is like inviting hundreds of lying salesmen into your living room to pitch bull-shit and deception right in your face! Oh the real content, yes, bathroom humor sitcoms generated by sophomoric minded teenage boys masquerading as writers. Formula generated dramas that wallow in stereotype characters. Nonsensical game shows, reality shows, soap operas and phony doctor shows such as Dr. Oz and others. 

Oh, let’s not forget the news, starting with our local news channels here in the Bay Area. I believe local news starts at about 5am. Every local channel ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX has morning news programs running until about 9am. Every channel has the same news and content at the same time as if they were programmed by one person. Here is one astounding characteristics of these channels, they are obsessed about the weather, all start their program with the weather report, usually presented by a well-dressed “meteorologist” standing in front of a weather map reading about 20 temperatures that don’t vary more than 2 degrees. You get the feeling these weather reporters have never been outside, because their hair is perfect! Here is an exercise, next time the weather segment (about 3 times every ½ hour) comes on switch to the other 3 stations, guaranteed you will see the exact same thing, just a different “meteorologist” calling out temps from the map! It’s perplexing because anyone familiar with Bay Area weather realizes there is no weather in the Bay Area; it’s the most anemic climate just about anywhere. I could see this weather emphasis say for the Buffalo area, but here? 

It’s a shame that with such a block of time there is no creativity in the realm of TV news. What an opportunity for one of these channels to come up with an innovative idea to be unique and creative, given the bland competitors this could be a slam dunk for progressive action. 

Let’s not forget our great cable and corporate news outlets and the bought and paid for company men such as Brian Williams spouting nonsense and spreading propaganda as dictated by the corporation. Am I the only one that sees these cable and corporate networks as being complicit in the run up to the Iraq assault and the many other conflicts now raging? Did you notice how gung-ho the anchors were selling the invasion and bringing on consultants usually ex generals on the payrolls of defense companies? This goes on today with little objection, but of course who is going to report it?

 So now the only thing left for me to enjoy on TV is watching the wonderful Giants playing baseball! The only issue here is I have to watch baseball alone; my wife refuses to watch because baseball players spit! Dang I wish she would not have pointed that out to me!