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Tag: Frank Zappa
On Viral Attacks by Benevolent Benefactors
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
What catches us by surprise hurts us double.
– Seneca
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
– C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
I remember once in college we had a class discussion on how ancient Rome expanded primarily out of fear of being conquered. In other words, the Romans believed their best defense was a strong offense: they engaged in the hostile takeovers of their enemies to avoid being conquered themselves.
This calls to mind the interaction between the emotion of fear and how it relates to the survival instinct. Undeniably, these will often supersede the loftier considerations of ethics and law; and they apply equally to individuals, gangs, groups, corporations, cults, and governments.
The desire for control is rooted in fear and perhaps greed. In many cases, these may even be rooted in pride.
Continue reading “On Viral Attacks by Benevolent Benefactors”
The Coronavirus Encounters of an Average American Nobody
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
Last week, I read an online article in my local paper telling of a 68-year-old gentleman who died from COVID-19. In the article, it described how the man had retired in the last year because of cancer. Then, two days later, my wife asked me if I had read the article. When I said that I had, she responded: “Scary, huh? He was healthy.”
I replied: “What do you mean? He had underlying issues“.
And when we logged-on to read the article again, it was tagged as “updated 7 hours ago” and many of the words I’d read two nights before were…. gone. In the paragraph where it said he retired, it mentioned nothing of his cancer and instead described how the man was “active and enjoyed riding his bike”.
Of course, even a tin-foil-hat-wearing blogger like me would have a hard time believing that any conspiratorial pressure could be applied to my local paper. Perhaps the family requested the change or the original article was in error. It’s hard to say.
Continue reading “The Coronavirus Encounters of an Average American Nobody”
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“No matter whom you vote for, you always wind up getting John McCain.”
Tom Woods
“The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.”
Johann von Schiller
“The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else’s life.”
Frank Zappa
“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
Voltaire
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“The most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the ‘best’ sources.”
Walter Karp
“The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.”
H. L. Mencken
“The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.”
Frank Zappa
“History teaches us that the capacity for things to get worse is limitless.”
Chalmers Johnson
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.”
H. L. Mencken
“For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.”
Frank Zappa
“That government is best which governs least.”
Henry David Thoreau
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Give me liberty or give me death.”
Patrick Henry
“It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
Albert Einstein
“Gun registration is a gateway drug.”
Mark Gilmore
“People will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.”
Frank Zappa
A Video Exposition: Quantum Theory, Waves, and the Bulbous Bow of Confusion
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
The “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle” is a mathematical law of the universe involving “trade-offs”. In fact, it could be summarized as the law of having your cake but not being able to eat it too. Or, as applied for the sake of this article, it means either position or momentum can be measured at any given time, but not both simultaneously; at least not accurately.
I, personally, favor the rows or columns example of the Uncertainty Principle because of its simplicity in explaining Quantum Mechanics intuitively; if that were possible. The point is when studying columns the definitions of the rows disappear, and when focusing on the rows the columns vanish.
Continue reading “A Video Exposition: Quantum Theory, Waves, and the Bulbous Bow of Confusion”
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
Frank Zappa
“The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses.”
Albert Einstein
“The strength of the nation derives from the integrity of the home.”
Confucius
“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.”
Ronald Reagan
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else’s life.”
Frank Zappa
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”
Marcus Aurelius
“I don’t trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.”
John Taylor Gatto
US vs. THEM (PART II)
In Part I of this article I discussed why the “Us versus Them” mindset permeates society and how Trump has become a lightning rod for hate. Now I will assess his progress in fighting the Deep State and try to peer into a murky future.
In addition to not being Hillary, the main reasons I voted for Trump was he promised to build the wall, he promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, he promised to end our foreign military interventions, he said he would bring fiscal sanity to the budget, he said the Federal Reserve had blown an immense stock market bubble, he questioned the fake economic data spouted by government drones, and he called out the fake news bullshit media. When I regularly assess his progress on these issues, the standard response from Trump acolytes is “Would you rather have Hillary?”. No, I would not. But that doesn’t get Trump off the hook for his failures in my book.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Frank Zappa
MAD WORLD
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very very
Mad world, mad world
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/4f/9b/4f9bad96-304a-4451-85a7-c9fa56f4cc53/screen_shot_2017-10-04_at_54310_pm.png)
The haunting Gary Jules version of the Tears for Fears’ Mad World speaks to me in these tumultuous mad times. It must speak to many others, as the music video has been viewed over 132 million times. The melancholy video is shot from the top of an urban school building in a decaying decrepit bleak neighborhood with school children creating various figures on the concrete pavement below. The camera pans slowly to Gary Jules singing on the rooftop and captures the concrete jungle of non-descript architecture, identical office towers, gray cookie cutter apartment complexes, and a world devoid of joy and vibrancy.
The song was influenced by Arthur Janov’s theories in his book The Primal Scream. The chorus above about his “dreams of dying were the best he ever had” is representative of letting go of this mad world and being free of the monotony and release from the insanity of this world. Our ego fools us into thinking the madness of this world is actually normal. Day after day we live lives of quiet desperation. Despite all evidence our world is spinning out of control and the madness of the crowds is visible in financial markets, housing markets, politics, social justice, and social media, the level of normalcy bias among the populace has reached astounding levels, as we desperately try to convince ourselves everything will be alright. But it won’t.
THE FOURTH TURNING & WAR OF THE WORLDS
“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe
The paragraph above captures everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen during this Fourth Turning. It was written over two decades ago, but no one can deny its accuracy regarding our present situation. The spark was a financial crash. The response to the financial crash by the financial and governmental entities, along with their Deep State co-conspirators who created the financial collapse due to their greed and malfeasance, led to the incomprehensible election of Donald Trump, as the deplorables in flyover country evoked revenge upon the corrupt establishment.
QUESTIONS OF THE DAY
“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.”
Frank Zappa
“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.”
Frank Zappa
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Frank Zappa
A Fork-in-the-Road Approaches: The Short List – 95 Revelations from July, 2018
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
Beginning in May of this year (for April), this blogger had the idea to track linked internet headlines from various link-aggregating websites as documented transitions and arrange them into catalogued anthologies. The goal was to map a veritable road, if you will, on the way toward future revelations.
Beyond that, the series of encyclopedic atomization was meant for posterity, a means to compare tracking from previous months, and assembled in outright defiance against increasing internet censorship and memory-holed search engine results.
Predictably, like dots formulated into patterns on a grid, or in a matrix, so too have trends come into better focus as we continue our monthly trek toward the 2018 Midterm Elections.
As stated by this blogger before, President Donald Trump is the manifestation of one of the following three possibilities:
Continue reading “A Fork-in-the-Road Approaches: The Short List – 95 Revelations from July, 2018”