Beware Activist Investor Groups
Many will not know that there are now groups of activist investors using your pension money as leverage to force companies to do things they think should be done. Things like ending meat consumption, ending fossil fuels, ending your ability to take plane flights for vacations and much more. These ‘well meaning’ billionaires who feel guilty about their environmentally unsound life styles hogging resources are using their wealth to force the rest of us to overcompensate whether we like it or not. Here there is no discussion of science or facts, just their opinions and wealth. To me, it is unconscionable behavior and ought to be outlawed. It won’t be though as the mega rich always get richer. So I believe they are doing this not from guilt and not
Read More »Are We Being Duped?
I spent the first couple of hours today reading research out of China and about the Diamond Princess and the village in Italy where they stopped Coronavirus via aggressive testing. These all make for interesting reading. What I took away from it all is this…. Based on everything I read today, it seems that the vast majority of people infected show NO symptoms – could be 80-90% in total. Of those infected that do show symptoms, 85% or so get a mild form. Just 15% of the those with symptoms have severe issues and about 2-4% of those die. What does that mean? It means all of this stuff we are doing is a total waste of time. Take those numbers and do some math. It infers a real death
Read More »Science
Back in the last century when people still searched diligently for the objective truth, I was taught scientific method. The man that taught me was one of those geniuses who theorized for fun and found ways to investigate his theory to prove it right or wrong. I recall one session he did with the new research students – myself included. It was set up like a whodunnit. We were presented with a murder scene and then told we should ask questions to research the truth, develop theories and test them. The way it was done truly impressed me. It was me who solved the problem as well strangely enough in a flash of inspiration. It taught me how to theorize, investigate and re-theorize objectively. Roll forward 40 years or more
Read More »We Are All Idiots
Last week, I was defending humanity against those who seem to feel guilty about living and want everyone else to feel the same. This week, I’m wavering. You see, I always want to believe that humanity is a reflection of the above. That everyone here is here to learn and that they, being human, have the right to make mistakes. When it comes to Mother Earth, I do not see Her as a small furry kitten the neighbors abused needing my care but rather as a duality of good and (from our perspective anyway) bad. Like the two sides of the Moon, Mother Earth can give on one hand of Her bounty and yet strike you down the next with some affliction. As I said in a previous article, She
Read More »Time by Degrees
This morning, the mail lady passed me a large and stiff envelope. I knew immediately what it was and this was confirmed by the University of Strathclyde lettering. It was a replacement certificate for one I lost when I moved to Europe. I opened it with a slight thrill to be honest because that small oblong piece of paper was three years of my life. A different era. A different Universe. A different persona. The year was 1984 and I had spent virtually 6-months painstakingly creating a book. Hundreds of pages long, the book was hand typed and the top copy still has the white tippex blotches marking mistakes. Each diagram was hand drawn in ink and lettering stenciled on. Each photo was hand developed and printed by me
Read More »The Times Wants me to Die of Coronavirus
Yes, it’s true. It wants us older people to die off with the virus because we are more likely to not accept the climate change crisis. Damn right I don’t accept it and have argued ceaselessly for over 30-years that CO2 is not the driver of climate – the sun is. The geological record shows that, science shows that and common sense dictates that. Just because the young are more inclined to believe otherwise doesn’t make them right. Even the political IPCC doesn’t say there is a crisis and it has cherry picked the most extreme scientific theories to support its views. We now live in a world that is backwards. Older, more experienced and yes wise people are wished dead by the young. There was a time when Grandparents
Read More »Success is Elusive?
There are people who do something once and bang…. they find fame, fortune and success of that type. There are others who work diligently yet never gain any recognition. I have often wondered what drives this? What is the secret to finding commercial success? Yes, I wouldn’t mind a bit of it as I approach my retirement years. Actually, I have a had a lot of career success but a couple of major failed relationships have left me with very little and so, from time to time, I wish one of my hobbies might take off a bit and provide me with more income. But what is success? I tend to think of success initially in materialistic terms. It made me money, gained me some fame or notoriety and so
Read More »Dreams within dreams
I have the most amazingly detailed dreams. Every morning I wake up with some memory of these nightly travels and sometimes, I lay back in awe at just how detailed they are. Am I living two lives at once? Some people see dreams as the subconscious working out issues and even say that without this nightly relief valve, we would lose our marbles. Others see deep meaning in these dreams to be deciphered and chased recording the dreams on awakening in an attempt to recall them more fully. Perhaps others might see them as fragmentary memories of another life in a parallel universe. I have no preference for any of the above ideas. But I do have to marvel at the act of dreaming. There must be a part of
Read More »Hostýn and a Strange Image of Jesus
Last weekend I managed a quick trip out to Hostýn about 100km from Brno. Svatý Hostýn or St.Hostýn is a hill in Moravia and a place of devotion to Mary. As per Wikipedia…. According to a traditional legend, first recorded in 1665 by the writer Bohuslav Balbín in his work Diva Montis Sancti, during the disastrous raid of the “Tartars” in the 13th century, people who were seeking asylum here lacked water and they prayed Mary for help. It is said that a stream of water came out of the ground and a powerful storm forced Tatars to retreat. That being what it may be, the site is very ancient and was once perhaps a Celtic fortress or settlement of some kind. Another article I found states that… Hostýn
Read More »Wanna Buy A Photo??
A couple of years ago, my friend here in Brno – Walter Novak – a quite famous photographer in the USA – gave me some tips on taking photos. I started shooting things with my iphone that I thought interesting. It might be a sunset between buildings, an unusual view of the familiar, an unusual street lamp or anything like that. I then use a tool he shared with me to process it a bit and in as a creative ay as possible. The results I think, have been pretty good. As I collected all of these photos, I inevitable wondered what to do with them? I wanted to put them in an album online but couldn’t ind anything that worked well enough and didn’t cost a grand. Then I
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