Missing Link

It’s true – I’ve been busy lately. I have a few projects I’ve been working on (some that are paying, some that are not) and haven’t had much time to update everyone here as to what’s going on.

My latest website project that I’m working on (in conjunction with Major George Filer, USAF Ret.) is finally online. The site, UFO Extra, is a repository of information regarding UFO sightings and phenomena. Much of the information collected there stems from reports given to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) by eye witnesses.

The goal of the site is to bring the information to the masses, but also to promote the investigation and study of the phenomena. The fact is that there are hundreds of UFO sightings every month and while some may be explainable many are not. Either way, it’s an interesting subject and I look forward to seeing where the investigations go.

If you are at all interested in UFOs, you should check out this site.

[tags] UFOs, UFOLOGY, MUFON, Filer’s Files, UFO Extra [/tags]

I was reading my daily dose of news around the Internet this morning and came across an interesting post on Boing Boing regarding L. Ron Hubbard and his creation the Church of Scientology. It talked about a German book written in 1934 called “Scientologie” that not only bears the same name as the religion, but also contains a whole lot of the same stuff as the official doctrine of the “religion” ( and by “religion” I mean “cult” ).

This is pretty huge, as it shows that Scientology is an artificial construct that is in no way real, and in many ways a complete rip-off of someone elses hard work. It also shows that Hubbard is not above plagiarism, and that the central tenets of the cult were plagiarized from a book.

Pretty funny, if you ask me.

[tags] Scientology, Plagiarism, Scientologie, Scam, Cult, ripoff [/tags]

I was reading Boing Boing a few days ago and came across this story about how Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek billionaire,  forced a former UK ambassador’s website offline because he didn’t like what the fellow had to say.   That got me thinking over the past few days about the incident.    It seems pretty clear to me that this Usmanov character is just throwing the weight of his money around.   In typical fashion for people with too much money who have let it all go to their head – if he reads or hears about something he doesn’t like he tells someone “make it go away, i don’t care how or how much it costs”.  Don’t let the quotes fool you,  i’m not directly quoting him – I’ve never met him.

Based on what I’ve read, though,   I don’t care to meet him, either.

Seems like just another “spoiled rich kid” who doesn’t like it when people call him out for being an a-hole.

One of my good friends from my days in military school offered a challenge to me after reading my last post. I guess I’ve complained enough about our government that my friends are now wanting to know exactly what *I* would do instead. I can’t say that I blame them, and at least in part I expected this to happen sooner or later. The challenge, viewable in the comments of my previous post and reproduced here, is one I gladly accept.

MattyP wrote:

Mr. MMtMM,
I propose to you a challenge. I know how much you like analyzing and breaking down problems into fixable situations. I, like you, am extremely frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned, and generally fed up with the majority of American politicians. My challenge to you is this: IF provided with the necessary clout and authority, how would you re-work our current government to finally live up to its supposed task of representing our best interests?

I want to know specifically what, if you were elected President and chose to totally reboot the government, would you do? How would the Presidency of President Milton Waddums differ from every disgusting, corrupt, and morally bankrupt Presidency before it?

I am MOST interested in reading what you have to say, old friend!

First, let me say – this is quite the challenge. I find so many things that need improvement that it’s very VERY difficult to put it all into one post and keep it fairly concise. As such I am going to break it up into smaller posts. This is part one.

The first thing I would do is reform how elections happen. I would destroy the idea of a two party government that seems to permeate our government. You can’t represent the entirety of the US population and society in a system that only allows for two parties. The current system allows for significant stagnation, which harms everyone. We need some fresh ideas, new platforms and, most importantly, we need the will of the people to become a reality.

Beyond that, I would reform how campaign financing can be done. I would eliminate any contributions from companies or corporations, they cannot vote and should not be financing campaigns. It allows for corruption, kickbacks and the government working for the corporations and not the people. Government is for the people, not companies.

On the topic of HOW voting is done, I would say electronic voting machines WITH integrated paper backup. The software should be open to scrutiny by third party experts – no proprietary stuff.

Presidential signing statements would be made illegal, or at least limited in the scope of their use. If you don’t like a law as written then veto it, no ammending the law at the last second and with no recourse for debate or change.

I would eliminate the bureaucracy that is the Department of Homeland Security. It is a huge spender and isn’t doing much to really protect the people.

I would, as fast as is possible without further endangering our troops, get us out of the war in Iraq. I would then focus our efforts on the home front to try and repair our damaged economy and bring the US back into a prime position as a world economic powerhouse. This would include helping in the research and development of alternative fuel sources and new forms of technology. If we spent as much money on these things as we do on the unpopular wars we find ourselves fighting now, I have no doubt we’d succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

These are, in short, just a couple of things I would do. I will post part 2 later this week.

Back in January, I wrote this post, describing how Congressman Tom Cole’s National Republican Congressional Committee was offering to award me a leadership award for the business advisory council.   The catch was that I would be expected to donate a few hundred dollars to them, supposedly to fund a press release talking about it.  Nevermind the fact that a press release should, by no means, cost that much.  Nor should it be funded by the people you are supposed to be awarding!    If you want to give me an award, fine, but don’t expect ME to pay for YOU to tell people about it.   But I digress…

Probably a month and  a half later, I got another call from NRCC – again informing me of the great honor being bestowed upon me, and how I am being given a leadership award, blah blah blah.   They then played a (very offensive to me) audio recording of Tom Cole lambasting the newly elected democrats in congress who want to take away all of my small business rights, and how the Republicans are the only ones who have my interests at heart.   Given that I believe the only way to improve our nation is to work TOGETHER, I found the message conveyed to be rather offensive.    I felt, though, that if it was perhaps a legitimate invitation and award, I would perhaps be in a position to offer a voice of reason and could work to get people on both sides of the isle cooperating with each other, rather than working against each other.

After the recording,  the person I talked with briefly when I first called in came back on the line,    as I expected she went into detail about how they were going to do a press release, etc,  and how a contribution would be great.    Given that I’d heard this spiel before, I decided I would try and get more information about it – I specifically asked if  a contribution is required to receive the award.   I was informed, to my surprise, that no – a contribution is NOT required to receive the award, but that they greately appreciate any contributions that are given.   I told her I couldn’t contribute at the time,  but would consider them in the future.   I doubt in the future I’d feel any more compelled to give than I do now, but you never know.

I was told they would mail me information and a packet of things as part of this – yet it never came.    They never called back, and I’ve received no further correspondence.    I was lied to.

You see,   had I contributed, I have no doubt in my mind that I would have received more information and they would have done whatever they could to get me to keep giving them money.    Once they realized, however, that I probably would never give them money, they stopped bothering with this stupid little ploy of theirs.   They never sent me anything because,  no surprise here,   I no longer mean anything to them.    Not that I meant much to them before (just potential $$ in their coffers) ,  but now I’m not worth their time.    So much for being worthy of their leadership award.

Congressman Tom Cole should be ashamed of himself, and of the NRCC.   Their tactics are shameful,  his message is one of hate,  and the whole business advisory council thing is nothing more than a sham.    How many innocent businessmen have you conned into giving you money in the hopes that it will help them network in washington?  How long does it take for them to realize you’re full of crap and the Business Advisory Council is really a non-entity?

So,   Congressman Cole,   what do you have to say for yourself?    IF I am wrong, and your organization was sincere in it’s award to me,   go right on ahead and prove me wrong.

As it stands, I’m sick and tired of corrupt politicians,  lies and just plain underhanded tactics.   We need to clean up our society,  and the only way to truly do that is to clean up Washington and force our politicians to act in a manner that reflects well upon our chosen form of government, our country and all of her people.

[tags] Tom Cole,  NRCC, National Republican Congressional Committee,  Business Advisory Council [/tags]