North Korean Future

One of the world's worst dictators, Kim Jong Il, is dead. When this happens usually one of the thug dictator's sons takes his place and things continue to go bad for the poor souls who are under the thumb of the dictator. Kim Jong Unn is supposed to be the new guy, groomed by daddy Kim for the past few years and already on record as being as miserable a human being as dad was (as responsible for the deaths of perhaps millions of North Koreans through widespread preventable starvation, terrible prisons, forced labor camps and public executions) .

But will Unn ever take control? These days dictators are in bad fashion as the mass communication system have shown their subjects that democracy or some semblance of it, is afar far better system than being run by a "Dear One" like daddy Kim. South Korea probably just wants someone to take over before a flood of refugees from North Korea would damage its economy. And if a war breaks out between North and South Korea it would be a disaster for the whole region.

North Korea is the anomaly of the Internet age: a country with a population shut off from the world. It has no middle class just the favored few and the fearful masses. It has no churches, no democratic movement or intelligentsia and little information from the rest of the world or information about it apart from the lies of the state radio and Tv networks. And..North Korea has nuclear capability. This makes North Korea's future a different and more problematic one than what has been happening in the Mid East to its dictatorships.

Given all of that, I am grateful to both not be North Korean and to live far enough away from the mess to have some insulation from the future that awaits that region.

Researching Nonsense

This was too absurd to not pass on to you, so here it is today. There is a federal organization, The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), pay scientists to study..uh...questionable topics. That is, it pays taxpayer money for less than scientific research on matters that seem too trivial to think about given the tough economic times taxpayers face.

A small, little-known branch of the National Institutes of Health, NCCAM was launched a dozen years ago to study alternative treatments used by the public but not accepted by mainstream medicine. Since its birth, the center has spent $1.4 billion, most of it on "research". Essentially, the center has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on studies with questionable grounding in science.

Don't believe me? Ok, here are some of the studies conducted THIS YEAR conducted and their costs.
- a $374,000 taxpayer-funded grant was given to someone to study whether inhaling lemon and lavender scents can heal a wound. Amazingly...it can't...but I could have told them that for less that the $374,000 study cost.
- Then there was the $666,000 in federal research money, scientists examined whether distant prayer could heal AIDS. Sorry, believers.... It could not.
- Scientists were paid to study whether squirting brewed coffee into someone's intestines can help treat pancreatic cancer (a $406,000 grant) and whether massage makes people with advanced cancer feel better ($1.25 million). The coffee enemas did not help. The massage did.
- Given that politicians love to spout about how much they love the environment and how scary "global warming" is, the NCCAM also has invested in a number of studies of various forms of energy healing, including one based on the ideas of a self-described "healer, clairvoyant and medicine woman" who says her children inspired her to learn to read auras. The cost for that was $104,000. If you solicit her, I think that woman may not only not heal you, but make your bank account shrink in size.

Sad thing is, with the economy so bad the spending on this junk comes at the expense of real research projects who lose their funding to this mess. Lots of good science and good scientists are going unfunded because of this. But then in this politically correct age where everything is seen to have equal value, science has been relegated to unconfirmed hypothesis and opinion (see "global warming" as an example). I don't think we need a study to confirm the truth of that.

Rise In Addictions

I just read an article in Newsweek magazine about the increasing number of sex addicts in the U.S. (and elsewhere in this inter connected world, I presume). It laid out causes, effects of the sexual addiction on lives, treatments for it, and said that there are almost 6 million sex addicts here, a big increase in the number over the past 25 years. It made me curious about the subject of overall addiction. I think the percentage of addicts now is much higher than in previous years, and it is because it is a whole lot easier to become an addict today.

Another two addictions that are epidemic today are the electronic addiction and drug addiction. Looking at those two as a paradigm of why so many are addicted today may explain the problem better. In both cases improved communications have made it easier to become addicted because access to the addiction has increased. In the case of the electronic device addiction, there are so many electronic devices that seduce users with promises of innovations, that one can become consumed by electronics. If you doubt it, just observe cell phone users anywhere, any place, any time. They are both excessive and abusive in use and oblivious to anyone around them while using their phones. They also show the classic addictive property.... denial of their addiction.

Drug addiction (Unlike drugs in general, I don't think any more people are addicted to alcohol than previously, because alcohol availability and type remains constant. There is nothing "new" to stimulate more addiction) also is enhanced and encouraged by the wide variety of new drugs, the lower costs and the fact that society is more understanding (In some situations it almost expects it!) of people who are addicted to drugs. The wide availability of legal prescription drugs that physicians have been shamelessly guilty of handing to their patients is yet another reason for more drug addiction. There is now a blur between legal and illegal drug usage, and that cause more people to abuse drugs.

Of course there are many other categories in the rise in addictive behavior. Humans today have more affluence, more time to be addicted and more invisibility when practicing their addictions. Society seems more understanding as more and more of its members practice their own big or small addictions. As our values shift to one of more acceptance of the addict, I think we will see an even greater growth in addictive behavior. I can think of quite a few people I know who are addicted to something, and whose addiction is impairing their ability to function to their maximum. Twenty five years ago I did not have that kind of anecdotal evidence of addiction. I wonder if you feel the same or disagree with me about this issue.

Using Language Badly

I can't report on other languages, but I am fairly sure the quality of English language is in decline. I blame it on the electronic devices that make informal language standard and formal language almost extinct. It's quite an irony. One would think the improved communication avenues and the speed at which they work would make for better language. It does not. We have become "language sloppy".

I saw an article the other day about the most used web site of all, Face book. The writer listed ten sloppy, erroneous and overused expressions that clutter Face book pages. Here they are. 1. At the end of the day 2. Fairly unique 3. I personally 4. At this moment in time 5. With all due respect 6. Absolutely 7. It's a nightmare 8. Shouldn't of 9.24-7 10. It's not rocket science

I would be shocked if you didn't agree you hear those way too much. And we both could make a long list of our own least favorite sloppy, incorrect or overused terms or phrases. With so many sources for discussion there is much bad usage in speech and print. Need an example, just look at blogging.

All the anonymous blogging has dumbed down discussions as well as spewed erroneous information. It might be a new law that given the proliferation of media sources, that bad language kills good language. Fact is, when we use the technology we try to get the message across as quickly as possible, and damn the usage, grammar and spelling as we do it. "Multitasking" (I hate that word) is fatal to meaningful and accurate communication.

The Internet is the source of much of the bad language usage and the promotion of it. The amateurs rule the Internet and amateurs are not good for language. They Twitter constantly about "nothing" (as in, "I'm on the toilet now"). They text abbreviations (abbreviation is the simplest form of language and should never be a standard usage) is not that require an understanding of a simplistic code. Spelling usage and content are injured by it all.

Some say that the technology doesn't ruin the language it just changes it. Well, the people who use the technology are the ones ruining the language, not the devices. Too many simply do not respect clarity in language. The technology gives people the tools to kill the language as they never had before. Given that we humans are lazy, we sometimes will seek refuge in the simplistic. When seeking the simplest language forms all we do is create a state of uncertainty in the form of unclear expressions.

Sad to say, this can't change unless people either greatly reduce using the new technology for the communication (Ha! Cast down your cell phones and rejoin civilization!) or make a conscious effort to use the new technology better. Neither is likely to happen. So we are devolving into poor communicators and probably will be until enough of us say "enough" and demand better. So until they do I, guess I could dumb down more too. As in a more modern closing.... "hey, wht r u up 2 dog".

A Santa Wish List

I think it's time to make my Santa wish list. These are things I think the world could use, but few others believe we need. Let's let Santa mediate and decide to bring or not bring them after his usual judicious examination of the facts. After all, Santa is the guy who wouldn't bring the bee gun the 10 year old wanted because "You'll shoot your eye out, if I give it to you."

Ok, Santa, here are five of the things I want the world to get for Christmas.
- Santa... to the hundreds of millions of people who now walk around with their heads down, staring blankly into their iPhones or BlackBerrys or whatever it is they're holding and chattering to endlessly, Do you have a cure for that, maybe a potion I can sprinkle on them to bring manners back to them and to make them see the real world they ignore? What a gift that would be. To see people's faces again and to see them realize there is another world besides the technological one.

- Hey, fat jolly guy in the red suit! How about gathering all those reality show contestants and dropping them into a real world situation. Let's see if they can survive in the trenches, away from the staged camera views the idiots who watch and worship those "stars" believe are real are reality.

- How about some individual gifts, Mr. Claus, to make some rather annoying or dangerous humans behave better. I suggest for the following people the follow gifts They need no explanation, Santa: Barrack Obama- truth serum, The Kardasian family- a one way ticket to the North Pole....please keep them there and out of site, Muslim haters- a Muslim vision, Christian haters- a Muslim vision, Global Warming zealots- a fan to cool off their nonsensical rhetoric, Save the planet advocates- a full color, step by step manual for them to use to save themselves first since they often are more lost than is the planet they wish to save, Lady Gaga- to balance her shooting star.... a falling star to bring some sense of reality to her image of self importance.

- Protester manuals for all the protesters throughout the world would be Santarific for us all. It might help explain why some protests are worthless (those 99% er occupy park protests in the U.S. for example) and others are noble (those who risk all, their lives included to bring down the dictators who rule them). If the protesters who protest "nothing" would read your manual, maybe they would go home and not come back until they have a reason to protest. This sure would make us appreciate real causes and real sacrifices like the real protesters give.

- Santa, if you can bottle and place under every Christmas tree the Christmas spirit that is pervasive around Christmas, the world might be a better place in which to live. Uh I'd even be willing to drink that nasty Christmas egg nog every day if you do it.

Identity/Credit Card Thefts

Ever have your identity stolen by a thief who used your bank account, credit cards or some other financial account. It happened to me once when I drove from New Orleans and paid for a hotel room in Wyoming. My plan was to pay cash for every motel where I stopped to sleep, and I did at all except the Wyoming hotel. It seems they wouldn't let me pay with cash for...get this...security reasons. They wanted security that i would pay of I damaged the room and yet one of their employees stole card numbers (including mine) that day.

I didn't find out someone tried to use my credit card until more than a week later when Jane and I went shopping for furniture for her part of the house. When I tried to pay with my credit card I was told the account had been closed because of expected fraud. That kind of stolen credit card used at a business has been the most common way people have been victims of identity theft. But now, I have read that "experts' in identity theft say that travelers are especially vulnerable because they increasingly rely on electronic devices that easily can be lost or hacked.

It's good news for me, since I do not use those electronic devices, and bad news for most others who do. Credant Technologies, a data-protection company, found that travelers have lost 11,000 mobile devices at the busiest U.S. airports this year, 37.5% of them laptops and 37.2% tablets or smart phones. So carelessness (stupidity) in using those electronic devices makes it even easier for thieves to use them for their own wants.

As in my credit card theft experience, the hotel is the most common theft site. Supposedly, 38% occurred at hotels or resorts. It is claimed that today, you are 15 times more likely to have your identity stolen than to have your car broken into. The two devices that give the thieves their most common theft avenues are unsecured wireless networks at hotels, airports and other public places and the those (dumb) smart phones. Never ever use a Wi Fi at an airport. There are plenty of identity theft thieves waiting for you to so just that. The problem of course, is that most people are so addicted to their technology they are incapable of thinking rationally when using it.

But the reality is that if you take the appropriate precautions, you reduce your risk dramatically because the criminals will move to someone who is more careless than you. Wanna bet against me that I think most people are too addicted to do that?

Merry Christmas....Criminals

Christmas time is supposed to be the time for peace, brotherhood, love...all those sappy states of nirvana humans try for but never seem to achieve. So given that Christmas is also a time when criminals and bad brotherhood also continue to rear their heads, I think we should look at some of the not so sweet and syrupy Christmas moments that have happened this year. Instead of "ho ho ho" times you might call them all them "oh no, oh no. oh no" moments.

- South Carolina woman, Patty White, confessed to killing her friend Michele O' Dowd the other day and then burying her body under a pile of Christmas presents in the victim's home. The motive? Patty wanted to use O'Dowd's debit card. I wonder if Santa will bypass Patty's jail cell this Christmas or maybe just drop in with some Christmas coal.

- If you are ever in the state of Georgia and looking for that Christmas mistletoe to put over your doorway beware of a mistletoe hunter named William E. Robinson. Mistletoe Bill was out looking for some of that smooch plant that he saw outside a shopping mall. "Every year I go somewhere to get some mistletoe to decorate the house ... I get some for my friends that can't get mistletoe. The best way to get it is with a shotgun." Yep! He tried to shoot it down from the tree right there next to the mall. Too bad. When in prison this Christmas Bill will probably be kissed by more of the inmates than he would liked to be.

- Most people think Christmas ornaments are pretty representations of the beauty of the holidays. But not one Christmas shopping attendee named Ruth Wagner. Ruth believes in receiving, not giving....as in stealing ornaments at Christmas fare sales she attends. After being chased and caught by one vendor who watched Ruth steal an ornament from his display, Ruth decided to use the ornament as a weapon and stabbed the pursuing vendor. Now Ruth will have to spend Christmas decorating the jail house tree.

- Terry Trent of Ohio was eager to get a jump on the Christmas season and, I suppose, wanted to show he could fly higher than Santa himself. The 44-year-old, allegedly got very high and out of his mind smelling bath salts, and was arrested for breaking into a Dayton home and putting up Christmas decorations. He was discovered watching television on the couch by the 11-year-old boy who lives there and no doubt thought Terry's imitation of Santa in the sky was quite convincing. Police are unconvinced.

- Even guys dressed like Frosty the Snowman can overdo their Christmas spirit with bad behavior. One guy dressed as Frosty at a Maryland Christmas parade made a threatening "kicking motion" at one of the police department's K-9 dogs. Kevin Walsh (aka Frosty) then pushed and cursed out an officer while still in his costume and was arrested before he could melt and dissolve into dew.