Mythless

It is hard to understand how any sane person can follow an ideology that supports the death of others. If there are deadly penalties in your holy books, you have a moral, ethical and human obligation to not only walk away from it, but to denounce it at the highest mountain tops. I would go even further, if your ideology has EVER condoned the use of deadly force, you need to walk away. We are none of us saints, probably because the whole idea of saints is a man made myth to an ideal that is unattainable,but we do have aspirations towards basic decency that all religions and the gods that were created around them want to deny us. There is nothing noble in presenting the other cheek, just abasement and humility. There is no virtue in telling half the world that they are second class and beneath interest or contempt, is there any justice in an eye for an eye? The true study of the holy books written by unholy men should be counting the number of ways we are urged to murder. If genocide

The 2016 election has been highly entertaining so far. Less for the ideas expressed and the advances provided to humanity of how we, as a species, a nation or a group can better ourselves than for just a Kardashian exuberance for the cult of the almighty ME. A very long time ago when I was in high school, one of my teachers asked us to write down and sign the following: "I, Peter Brown, am the least interesting person in the world." His point was manifold, but in effect he was telling us that in the great unveiling of the Universe our fifteen year old opinions and thoughts mattered little. He was right, of course, and in many ways he still is and most specifically when I overhear discussions punctuated by the immortal I and ME. This election cycle has brought the ME syndrome to the forefront of the selection dance. The obvious champion of the genre is the immortal Trump. But he is in no way alone at the top. On the Democratic side we have the resurrected Bernie, or more spe

What we are seeing is not war. What we are seeing are random acts of violence that have no relation to the age old concept of war. There are specific rules to war, rules that stipulate what aggression and organized murder has to take in order to be called a war. Wars must be fought between armies, not small children watching fireworks. The combat unit is called a soldier. He is a trained operator working for pay and prestige engaged in working against similar units on the other side. The war itself must be declared between nations who sponsor their units. If you are not a recognized unit, you cannot participate. The price for a civilian to jump into a war is very high and can lead to the execution of hostages from the civilian's immediate surroundings. Realistically what we are seeing are just a series of murders that the public, which should not be involved, has, in its ignorance, called wars. In effect all the "terror attacks" should be treated strictly as rand

1932 all over again, different players, same old shit. With Russia starting its gnawing away at its neighbors in order to get more territory, the UK is groping its way towards the US. Military and religious unrest in the middle east taking petro power away from the civilized world, all we need is for one of several small conflicts to give one or more tin pot dictator to become offended and start so mething. Do you think that Donald has the brains of a Hitler? Does Hollande look like a Petain? Is there a country on the planet with an incredible arsenal and has it been training their troops with mini-wars for a while? Are parts of the world loaded with ultra rich, ultra educated young people fanatically following some sort of leader we know little about? Is the Koran the new Mein Kampf? Why is all wealth accumulated in a small enclave of the disgustingly rich and taxes abrogated for them? Those tax dollars, Euros, Riyals and Rubles that should be staving off the forces of evil are, in f

Sex and God. It occurs to me, a well meaning atheist, that there is little difference between how individuals treat their sex life and their religious affiliations. For the most part they are handled the same way, a sort of benign and almost embarrassed afterthought that is really nobody else’s concern. It is not, in general, discussed unless you are in a sort of frat party situation where great exaggeration are the norm, seriously. Think about that kegger moment when you and your co-believers got tanked and started making those absurd claims of my dick is bigger than your dick! Or at the local mosque, temple or church when the minister full of himself and the Holy Spirit declares that his god is bigger, nastier or flat out better than all other gods. As the tempo escalates you can bring in “proof” of the most absurd kind and very often those discussions degenerate into physical violence. We all know, especially the women, that the differences are very small, that they mean

Who will be next dead Horst Wessel or John Birch hero of intransigence? I ask because there are already a number of volunteers on the ISIS side who have postulated for the honor. Many have applied and the closest we have come is Jihadi John, the British, now hamburger meat, who took great satisfaction in beheading people. Oh, sorry, I forgot to explain. As you know Horst and John were the poster children of extremist movements who achieved such high honor by conveniently dying. Horst on the Nazi side and John on the GOP side. They were both firm supporters of a certain ideology and it seems that extremist groups really need this type of figurehead, so when Mein Trumpf decided to embrace right wing thuggery the search was on for a suitable candidate. The main drawback is that no one has died yet in the service of Mein Trumpf. There has been a lot of Sturm und Drang, incoherent rants and raves, a smidgen of violence encouraged and embraced by the Yam, but no real substance. But hair

Clearly VW has stepped in it big time, and clearly they will have to pay but just as clearly there are dangers in sacrificing the baby with the NOX bath water. As an expert in crisis PR with an abiding interest in energy and more recently renewable clean energy, there are some serious silver linings in this black cloud story, but first let’s try and analyze the problem in a mature and adult manner. What is the crux of this situation, in a sense is  VW and Audi’s almost slave like determination to promote their hugely successful TDI engines beyond what they could support or deliver. The little machine that won LeMans several years in a row, put diesel power way ahead of a number of very sophisticated gasoline engines while delivering unbelievable MPG and performance still has a long life ahead of it. The TDI is what the diesel should have been when it was first started running on peanut oil. Then the actual petroleum fuel that came out of the design centers in Germany exploited t