This Ranks Right Up There With Records Packaging "Breathe-In" & "Breathe-Out" Messages For Blondes

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

10 ways to fix the broken congressional budget process (Brookings)

John Lounsbury: 'Some of the proposals are problematic but one definitely is not: That would establish a coupling of the "debt limit" to the appropriations passed by Congress.' :)

Uh ... was that coupling proposed by the tinfoil brigade?

One solution might be to close down Brookings, before they become the main reason no one answers SETI? It might be too late. The following quote nearly proves it.

"The debt ceiling should automatically be increased when a budget resolution, which accurately reflects the estimated debt limit, is approved by Congress and goes to the president for signature."

Please tell me the person who said that was drunk or senile. I can't stand to see our country run this way.

"The Merchant of Avarice"

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Start Putting Human Sub-Species On The Endangered Species List? 

That May Be Our Most Viable Option At This Point!

Some candidates. The Middle Class? India's Girl-Child class? Women everywhere? Not to mention non-billionaire voters. Et tu college students?

Seriously. Getting EPA protection, stateside or in Europe, may be the quickest way to get protection legislated soon enough to matter. That means soon enough to prevent ourselves from lopping off too many parts that "WE" can't survive without. Even German voters care more about saving bumblebees than about saving the citizens throughout southern Europe, although they admit both acts are for the same, aggregate purpose. Huh?? Regardless. Show me another way to get the entire 28-nation block to make remedial adjustments that quickly!

You couldn't make this level of stupidity up.

In a cut-throat race to hoard "fiat" - and defer it's use to supposedly more important times - we may literally end up cutting one too many of the key cultural arteries that supply infrastructure supporting each of the competitive lobbies wielding an economic knife. If Shakespeare were still around, he'd have to re-write some themes, including coming up with "The Merchant of Avarice" - about an idiot intent on repeatedly cutting off a pound of his OWN flesh, to reduce expenses and thereby pay off old debts to himself. Doh!

Yet is that the ONLY way to stem the growing stupidity? 

Wouldn't establishing some simple tolerance limits on EVERY process be far simpler than clumsy, self-assisted suicide? 

We've already made mico/macro self-assisted suicide illegal, but like other declared wars, our avowed efforts expand the exact entity we purport to squash, thereby calling into question the very axioms we're using to shape our efforts.

Perhaps a bit more balanced thinking would do wonders?

To try that out, do we have to put quality of distributed decision-making on the endangered species list too?

We Can Do Anything ... Yet Are No Longer Capable Of Coordinating Anything Except Looting One Another

  (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Many of the images listed here are of ongoing protests against austerity.

A friend from Ukraine writes: "There are some very good people living in Kiev who are choking in the insane tornado of corruption and violence. Breaks my heart."

In parallel, a friend from Bulgaria writes: "Turned out BG antigovernment protests [Nov, 2013] were kidnapped by the opposition, .. which is the same as the government :-(
.. So now we are waiting the misery to make all Bulgarian people go out and protest. 2 million young already left the country during the last 20 years. Mostly old are left. Old people don't protest, or do they??"

Other contacts, from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Spain, Portugal and Greece have all sent similar emails - about most of their talented people and/or youth simply leaving, or becoming a lost, unemployed generation. And our coping methods in the USA are not much better.

Will Europe survive this? Will we?

That such stupidity could re-occur, in the 21st Century .... is simply unbelievable! 

How is this happening?

Humans can't possibly be this selectively stupid ... can they?

Sadly, I think yes. I still routinely meet highly "educated" and/or experienced people in Washington DC - from all kind of professions - who truly believe that we should simply return to the gold standard, stop welfare, stop immigration ... yada, yada. Every blind person groping every context is increasingly certain of their view on parsing a human context, the vast majority of whose operations they are not even aware of, let alone understand!

Millions of specialist plumbers, programmers, PhDs, Engineers, Physicians, Bankers .... even priests, you name it .... and 99% of them are so narrowly informed so as to be more trouble than their talents are worth.

In the midst of all this talent, we need to remind ourselves that organized teams can do amazing things ... yet we somehow find ourselves no longer capable of coordinating anything except looting one another?

The trivial, distracting details DO NOT MATTER. We first need to decide to stop being this stupid.

Then, as always, anything is possible. All we need to do is simply remind ourselves that coordinated teams, especially whole electorates, can accomplish truly amazing things.

If it doesn't have to be this way, then it won't ... as soon as people decide that it doesn't have to be this way.

Please stop all the preaching and protesting, which only trigger defense mechanisms (exactly what the worst frauds WANT to hide behind). Then please start PATIENTLY engaging all the disconnected people, on what desired outcomes they'd like to see happen. Only by patiently going over the actual operations, context and finally data ... can all people get on the same wavelength, and work well together.

What we're doing now simply isn't working. We're smarter than this. There is ALWAYS a better way, but only if we're willing to look for one, and are then persistent and patient enough to avoid useless argument.

The few frauds who want to see us all arguing are the very idiot savants who pursue their looting strategy of divide & conquer. 

Do NOT let the idiot savants conquer us! 

We can be smarter than them, but ONLY if we choose to act more intelligently.